Critical review of existing nanomaterial adsorbents to capture carbon dioxide and methane

Innovative gas capture technologies with the objective to mitigate CO₂ and CH₄ emissions are discussed in this review. Emphasis is given on the use of nanoparticles (NP) as sorbents of CO₂ and CH₄, which are the two most important global warming gases. The existing NP sorption processes must overcome certain challenges before their implementation to the industrial scale. These are: i) the utilization of the concentrated gas stream generated by the capture and gas purification technologies, ii) the reduction of the effects of impurities on the operating system, iii) the scale up of the relevant materials, and iv) the retrofitting of technologies in existing facilities. Thus, an innovative design of adsorbents could possibly address those issues. Biogas purification and CH₄ storage would become a new motivation for the development of new sorbent materials, such as nanomaterials. This review discusses the current state of the art on the use of novel nanomaterials as adsorbents for CO₂ and CH₄. The review shows that materials based on porous supports that are modified with amine or metals are currently providing the most promising results. The Fe₃O₄-graphene and the MOF-117 based NPs show the greatest CO₂ sorption capacities, due to their high thermal stability and high porosity. Conclusively, one of the main challenges would be to decrease the cost of capture and to scale-up the technologies to minimize large-scale power plant CO₂ emissions.