Resumen
The rise of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission due to the rapid economic growth becomes a global issue since it is the major factor of global warming and climate change. Hence, improving the efficiency of the CO2 capture technology is up most important. CO2 can be physically or chemically absorbed into different types of solvent including water before reacting with alkaline waste for carbon storage. In this work, the efficiency of absorption has been further improved by introducing lotus-inspired membrane with nonwetting surface. The thin and porous membrane provides a large surface area for liquid-gas interaction in membrane gas absorption. The nonwetting surface is important to ensure the fast permeation of CO2 through the air-filled pores before being absorbed into liquid solvent. In this work, polyvinylidene ?uoride (PVDF) membrane with lotus-like surface has been successfully developed by blending TiO2 nanoparticles followed by silane modification after phase inversion. At Cassie-Baxter state, the air trapped on the rough and hydrophobic surface minimizes surface wetting. The CO2 permeation has been successfully improved to 1.46 × 10-3 mol·m-2·s-1 using lotus-inspired membrane and alkaline absorbent, leading into a reduction of energy and chemical consumption in CO2 capture. The lotus-inspired membrane is useful to capture CO2 from biogas, landfill gas and flue gas. Furthermore, membrane gas absorption requires low pressure for carbon capture and allows carbonation of brine at high pH. Thus, this work promotes sustainability of energy industry which is the backbone of economy and humanity growth.