Polyethyleneimine-crosslinked cellulose aerogel for combustion CO2 capture.

Polyethylenimine (PEI) will block the channel of pore when it was impregnated in the porous solid, limiting its practical application in CO2 adsorption. In this method, a novel polyethyleneimine-crosslinked cellulose (PCC) aerogel sorbent was prepared by the sol-gel process, hydrolysis reaction and crosslinking reaction. The specific surface area of porous PCC aerogel was still retained 234.2 m2/g when the content of nitrogen was 17.4 wt%. The CO2 adsorption capacity of PCC aerogel reached 2.31 mmol/g at 25 ℃ under pure dry CO2 atmosphere. Pseudo-second order model perfectly is suitable to predict the CO2 adsorption behaviors of PCC aerogel at different temperatures. The CO2 diffusion mechanism of PCC aerogel was limited by not only intra-particle diffusion but also surface diffusion. The PCC aerogel showed excellent CO2 adsorption-desorption recyclability after 10 cycles. This work proved that the PCC aerogel played an important role as a potential CO2 adsorption solids.