MICROWAVE-ASSISTED SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF COVALENT ORGANIC POLYMER ADSORBENT FOR EFFICIENT C02 CAPTURE

Recent advancement in CO2 capture technology showed a promising trend in the
development of covalent organic polymer (COP) adsorbent for CO2 capture. Although
the COP adsorbent is very robust with high CO2 uptake, it suffers a major drawback
of long synthesis time. Thus, this study investigates the possibility of reducing the
synthesis time via the application of microwave reaction system while maintaining the
desired characteristics of the covalent organic polymer adsorbent. Here a series of
COP-4 adsorbents (COP-4A, B, C, D, and E) are synthesized at various synthesis
temperature and synthesis time. Initial findings showed that microwave method has
successfully synthesised the COP-4B adsorbent within 4 hours, thus reducing the
synthesis time from 12 hours to 4 hours. Greater reduction in synthesis time was
observed at elevated synthesis temperatures. The characterisation results of these
COP-4 adsorbents showed strong agreement with reported literature. The highest BET
surface area of 1461 m2 g"1 for COP-4A is achieved by microwave heating, which
leads to the highest C02 uptake. The high hydrothermal stability of >600 °C of COP-4
adsorbent made them an attractive adsorbent for CO2 capture from moist natural gas
stream The adsorption properties of these COPs for CO2 and CH4 at 1 bar up to 50 bar
are also studied. The C02 uptake ofCOP-4B reaches 69.4 mg g"1 and 856.87 mg g"1 at
1 and 50 bar respectively, which is higher than the reported CO2 uptakes.