Structural evolution of CO2 sorbents during cyclic operation

In order to mitigate climate change and suppress ever-increasing atmospheric CO2 emission, capture and storage technologies have been proposed. The development of efficient and stable CO2 sorbents is a crucial step towards carbon dioxide neutrality. Solid CaO- and MgO-based sorbents are highly promising materials for CO2 capture, owning to their high theoretical CO2 uptake and intermediate operational temperatures and natural abundance. However, bare MgO has a very low CO2 uptake that can be accelerated appreciably through the addition of alkali metal salts (e.g., NaNO3, KNO3, LiNO3, and their eutectic mixtures). Our research is focused on resolving the structural mechanism of CO2 uptake by a combination of complementary in situ methods including in situ environmental SEM, in situ TEM and in situ XRD techniques.