Carbon Dioxide Adsorption for Environmental Management

Carbon dioxide adsorption has emerged as a vital strategy in mitigating climate change by removing CO₂ from industrial flue streams, ambient air and other gas mixtures. Fundamentally, adsorption exploits the affinity between gas molecules and solid surfaces to concentrate CO₂ for subsequent storage or utilisation. Advances in material science have produced an array of porous sorbents—ranging from activated carbons and zeolites to metal–organic frameworks and functionalised polymers—that offer high surface areas, tunable pore structures and tailored chemical environments. Operational schemes typically employ pressure, temperature or vacuum swings to regenerate sorbents, balancing energy requirements against capture efficiency. Integration of adsorption units with existing power plants, cement works and hydrogen production facilities is progressing, supported by pilot trials that demonstrate robust cyclic stability and scalable reactor designs. Emerging efforts focus on biomass‐derived carbons, heteroatom doping and hierarchically porous architectures to enhance capacity, selectivity and kinetics. This field sits at the intersection of materials science, chemical engineering and environmental policy, underpinning carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) initiatives worldwide and offering practical pathways to achieve net-zero targets.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Innovations in biomass-derived carbons have yielded microporous carbon compartments with exceptionally high CO₂ uptake under both pre- and post-combustion conditions. Controlled carbonisation of wheat flour followed by chemical activation produced carbon frameworks with narrow micropores (<0.8 nm) and extensive surface areas, achieving adsorption capacities exceeding 5 mol kg⁻¹ at 0 °C and demonstrating rapid kinetics alongside excellent cyclic stability and facile regeneration.

Oxygen-rich activated carbons derived from cellulose acetate have shown that introducing polar functional groups into predominantly microporous networks can significantly enhance adsorption performance at ambient and sub-ambient conditions. These materials combine high surface areas (>3 800 m² g⁻¹) with pore volumes around 1.8 cm³ g⁻¹, yielding improved isosteric heats of adsorption and elevated volumetric CO₂ uptake, thereby offering a route to balance gravimetric capacity with industrial practicality.

Carbon Dioxide Adsorption for Environmental Management publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in carbon dioxide adsorption for environmental management across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Adsorption capacity: The maximum amount of CO₂ that a sorbent can hold per unit mass or volume under specified conditions.

Microporosity: The presence of pores smaller than 2 nm in diameter, which strongly influence gas uptake at low pressures.

Sorbent regeneration: The process of releasing adsorbed CO₂ from a material, typically by changing pressure or temperature to restore adsorption sites.

Pressure swing adsorption (PSA): A cyclic process in which pressure changes are used to alternately capture and release CO₂, enabling continuous operation.

Isosteric heat of adsorption: The heat released when a gas molecule is adsorbed, indicative of interaction strength between sorbent and gas.

References

1. Exceptional CO 2 capture in a hierarchically porous carbon with simultaneous high surface area and pore volume. Energy & Environmental Science (2014).
2. CO2 Capture in the Sustainable Wheat-Derived Activated Microporous Carbon Compartments. Scientific Reports (2016).
3. Heteroatom functionalized activated porous biocarbons and their excellent performance for CO 2 capture at high pressure. Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2017).
4. Oxygen-rich microporous carbons with exceptional hydrogen storage capacity. Nature Communications (2017).
5. CO2 capture materials: a review of current trends and future challenges. Materials Today Sustainability (2023).
6. Influence of surface modification on selective CO2 adsorption: A technical review on mechanisms and methods. Microporous and Mesoporous Materials (2021).
7. Review on Reactor Configurations for Adsorption-Based CO2 Capture. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research (2021).