Influence of surface modification on selective CO2 adsorption: A technical review on mechanisms and methods

The mitigation of climate change, abatement of greenhouse gas emissions and thus, fundamentally, the separation of CO2 from various gas streams are some of the most pressing and multifaceted issues that we face as a society. De-carbonising our entire civilisation will come at a great cost and requires vast amounts of knowledge, initiative and innovation; yet, no matter how much time or money is spent, some sectors simply cannot be de-carbonised without the deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies. The technical challenges associated with the removal of CO2 are not universal – there exists no single solution. Capturing the CO2 on solid sorbents has been gaining traction in recent years given its cost-effectiveness as a result of its ease of application, relatively small energy requirements and applicability in a wide range of processes. Even with the myriad materials such as zeolites, carbons, metal organic frameworks, mesoporous silicas and polymers, the challenge to identify a sorbent with optimal capacity, kinetics, selectivity, stability and ultimately, viability, still persists. By tailoring these solid materials through comprehensive campaigns of surface modification, the pitfalls of each can be mollified and the strengths enhanced. This highly specific tailoring must be well informed so as to understand the mechanisms by which the CO2 is adsorbed, the surface chemistry that has influence on this process, and what methods exist to facilitate the improvement of this. This review endeavours to identify the surface functional groups that interact with the CO2 molecules during adsorption and the methods by which these functional groups can be introduced. It also provides a comprehensive review of the recent attempts and advancements made within the scientific community in the experimental applications of such methods to enhance CO2 capture via adsorption processes. The primary search engine employed in this critical review was Scopus. Of the 421 references cited that embody the literature focussed on surface modification for enhancing the selective adsorption of CO2, 370 are original research papers, 43 are review articles and 7 are conference proceedings.