Chitosan grafted graphene oxide aerogel: Synthesis, characterization and carbon dioxide capture study

We have demonstrated a superficial, environmentally friendly and sustainable development of chitosan (CS) grafted graphene oxide aerogels for adsorption of CO2 gas. The CS is grafted into the carbonaceous materials like graphene oxide, multi-walled carbon nanotubes etc. to provide the large surface area, high porosity and a large number of amine group which facilitates the adsorption of CO2 gas. CS and carbonaceous materials undergo crosslinking by using cross-linker reagents, and freeze-drying technique to yield CS based aerogels with ordered porous structures. Crosslinking between CS and carbonaceous materials was confirmed by FT-IR. Physical properties of the CS-based aerogels were studied using SEM, TGA, XRD, BET isotherm analysis. The adsorption capacity of CO2 gas by CS grafted graphene oxide aerogels is around 0.257 mmol g−1 at 1 bar, that is significantly higher in comparison to the adsorption capacity of pure CS. We believe that this study helps to reduce the cost of adsorbents due to the large availability of marine waste (CS) and thus aims to reduce the anthropogenic CO2 gas at low cost, favourable temperature and pressure as compared to previously reported.