Scalable High Performance Flat Sheet Adsorbents for Carbon Capture

We report roll-to-roll fabrication of flat-sheet adsorbents based on an amidoxime-functionalized polymer of intrinsic microporosity (PIM-1-AO) enhanced with tethered molecular amines for efficient low pressure gas separation applications. The sorbents were fabricated entirely from solution-processable materials without the need for binders and coated onto commercially available non-woven supports. Our flat-sheet sorbent concept was first validated at the bench scale, followed by successful scale-up to roll-to-roll manufacturing, demonstrating its feasibility for large-scale production. Lab-scale roll-to-roll production yielded meters-long sheets which exhibited exceptional CO₂ uptake capacities of 2.5 mmol/g and 5.25 mmol/g under humid air and 10% CO2 gas mixtures, respectively, surpassing previously reported values for polymer-based flat-sheet adsorbents. The materials demonstrated low temperature regenerability at 50°C, indicating a favorable energy profile for desorption. Furthermore, the flat-sheet sorbent exhibits rapid adsorption kinetics which is a critical parameter for enabling short cycle times in direct air capture and other gas separation technologies. These results show the potential of this versatile polymer sorbent for scalable deployment in gas separation applications.