Effective Capture of Carbon Dioxide Using Hydrated Sodium Carbonate Powders

The emission of CO₂ has been considered a major cause of greenhouse effects and global warming. The current CO₂ capture approaches have their own advantages and weaknesses. We found that free-flowing hydrated sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃) powders with 30 wt % water can achieve a very high CO₂ sorption capacity of 282 mg/g within 60 min and fast CO₂ uptake (90% saturation uptake within 16 min). The results suggest that the alkaline solution resulting from the dissolution of partial Na₂CO₃ can freely attach onto the hydrated Na₂CO₃ particles, which provides an excellent gas-liquid interface for CO₂ capture, leading to significantly enhanced CO₂ sorption capacity and kinetics.