Solvent Impregnated Polymers Loaded with Liquid‐Like Nanoparticle Organic Hybrid Materials for Enhanced Kinetics of Direct Air Capture and Point Source CO2 Capture

Abstract Hybrid CO 2 capture materials, solvent impregnated polymers (SIPs), are developed based on a simple and scalable encapsulation technique to enhance CO 2 capture kinetics of water‐lean solvents with high viscosity. Liquid‐like nanoparticle organic hybrid materials functionalized with polyethylenimine (NOHM‐I‐PEI) are incorporated into a shell material and UV‐cured to produce gas‐permeable solid sorbents with uniform NOHMs loading (NPEI‐SIPs). The CO 2 capture kinetics of NPEI‐SIPs show a remarkable 50‐fold increase compared to that of neat NOHM‐I‐PEI due to a large increase in the NOHMs‐CO 2 interfacial surface area provided by the SIP design. The optimum NOHM‐I‐PEI loading and sorption temperature are found to be ≈49 wt% and 50 °C, respectively, and NPEI‐SIPs exhibit great thermal stability over 20 CO 2 capture/sorbent regeneration temperature swing cycles. The pseudoequilibrium CO 2 loadings of NPEI‐SIPs under humid conditions are as high as 3.1 mmol CO 2 g −1 NPEI − SIPs for 15 vol% CO 2 (postcombustion capture) and 1.7 mmol CO 2 g −1 NPEI − SIPs for 400 ppm (direct air capture). These findings suggest that NPEI‐SIPs can effectively capture CO 2 from a wide range of CO 2 concentrations including direct air capture while allowing the flexible design of CO 2 capture reactors by combining the benefits of liquid solvents and solid sorbents.