Effective carbon dioxide sorption by using phyllosilicate anchored poly(quaternary-ammoniumhydroxidemethyl styrene) nanocomposites

Polymers are highly promising materials for capturing carbon dioxide (CO), a greenhouse gas. Hence in this work, we prepared phyllosilicate supported mesoporous polymer via reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerisation, which is the one among the controlled radical polymerisation. The mesoporous material anchored on dodecanethiol trithiocarbonate acts as a chain transfer agent (CTA) for the polymerisation of chloromethyl styrene and further conversion to quaternary ammonium compound which is effective to trap CO using tertiary amine. The synthesised porous phyllosilicate/polymer nanocomposites have been characterised by using various analytical tools. The CO sorption experiments were carried out by passing CO onto the synthesised porous phyllosilicate/polymer nanocomposites. The sorption kinetics was monitored by X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) spectra in the presence of carbonate were obtained by reaction of quaternary ammonium hydroxide and CO. The phyllosilicate anchored macromolecular CTA (macro-CTA) and the surface-initiated polymer nanocomposites encompassed apparent surface areas of 94.5 and 26.8 m g, respectively. In addition, the total pore volumes calculated for the macro-CTA and polymer were found to be 0.27 and 0.095 cmg, while the average pore sizes were 14.24 and 11.46 nm, respectively. The CO sorption capacity of the phyllosilicate/polymer nanocomposites, monitored at different temperatures, is the fastest for 25°C but slower for the sample treated at 50°C which may due to the dipole and quadrupole interaction.