Polyethyleneimine-crosslinked cellulose aerogel for combustion CO capture.

Polyethylenimine (PEI) will block the channel of pore when it was impregnated in the porous solid, limiting its practical application in CO 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 m/g when the content of nitrogen was 17.4 wt%. The CO adsorption capacity of PCC aerogel reached 2.31 mmol/g at 25 ℃ under pure dry CO atmosphere. Pseudo-second order model perfectly is suitable to predict the CO adsorption behaviors of PCC aerogel at different temperatures. The CO diffusion mechanism of PCC aerogel was limited by not only intra-particle diffusion but also surface diffusion. The PCC aerogel showed excellent CO adsorption-desorption recyclability after 10 cycles. This work proved that the PCC aerogel played an important role as a potential CO adsorption solids.