Cerium-MOF-Derived Composite Hierarchical Catalyst Enables Energy-Efficient and Green Amine Regeneration for CO Capture.

The excessive energy consumed restricts the application of traditional postcombustion CO capture technology and limits the achievement of carbon-neutrality goals. Catalytic-rich CO amine regeneration has the potential to accelerate proton transfer and increase the energy efficiency in the CO separation process. Herein, we reported a Ce-metal-organic framework (MOF)-derived composite catalyst named HZ-Ni@UiO-66 with a hierarchical structure, which can increase the CO desorbed amount by 57.7% and decrease the relative heat duty by 36.5% in comparison with the noncatalytic monoethanolamine (MEA) regeneration process. The composite catalyst of the CeO coating from the UiO-66 precursor on the HZ-Ni carrier shows excellent stability with a long lifespan. The HZ-Ni@UiO-66 catalyst also shows a universal catalytic effect in typical blended amine systems with a large cyclic capacity. The HZ-Ni@UiO-66 catalyst effectively decreases the energy barrier of the CO desorption reaction to reduce the time required to reach thermodynamics, consequently saving the energy consumption generated by water evaporation. This research provides a new avenue for advancing amine regeneration with less heat duty at low temperatures.