Hydrothermal Fabrication of High Specific Surface Area Mesoporous MgO with Excellent CO2 Adsorption Potential at Intermediate Temperatures

In this work, we report on a novel sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-assisted magnesium oxide (MgO)-based porous adsorbent synthesized by hydrothermal method for intermediate CO2 capture. For industrial MgO, its CO2 adsorption capacity is normally less than 0.06 mmol g−1, with a specific surface area as low as 25.1 m2 g−1. Herein, leaf-like MgO nanosheets which exhibited a disordered layer structure were fabricated by the introduction of SDS surfactants and the control of other synthesis parameters. This leaf-like MgO adsorbent showed an excellent CO2 capacity of 0.96 mmol g−1 at moderate temperatures (~300 ◦C), which is more than ten times higher than that of the commercial light MgO. This novel mesoporous MgO adsorbent also exhibited high stability during multiple CO2 adsorption/desorption cycles. The excellent CO2 capturing performance was believed to be related to its high specific surface area of 321.3 m2 g−1 and abundant surface active adsorption sites. This work suggested a new synthesis scheme for MgO based CO2 adsorbents at intermediate temperatures, providing a competitive candidate for capturing CO2 from certain sorption enhanced hydrogen production processes.