TiO(OH)₂ - Highly effective catalysts for optimizing CO₂ desorption kinetics reducing CO₂ capture cost: A new pathway

The objective is to find a new pathway for significant reduction in CO₂ capture energy consumption. Specifically, nanoporous TiO(OH)₂ was used to realize the objective, which was desired as a catalyst to significantly accelerate the decomposition of aqueous NaHCO₃, essentially CO₂ desorption - the key step of Na₂CO₃/NaHCO₃ based CO₂ capture technologies from overall CO₂ energy consumption perspective. Effects of several important factors on TiO(OH)₂-catalyzed NaHCO₃ decomposition were investigated. The quantity of CO₂ generated from 0.238 mol/L NaHCO₃ at 65 °C with catalyst is ∼800% of that generated without the presence of catalyst. When a 12 W vacuum pump was used for carrying the generated CO₂ out of reactor, the total amount of CO₂ released was improved by ∼2,500% under the given experimental conditions. No significant decrease in the catalytic effect of TiO(OH)₂ was observed after five cyclic CO₂ activated tests. In addition, characterizations with in-situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermal gravity analysis and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller of TiO(OH)₂ indicate that TiO(OH)₂ is quite stable. The discovery in this research could inspire scientists' interests in starting to focus on a new pathway instead of making huge effort or investment in designing high-capacity but expensive CO₂ sorbent for developing practical or cost-effective CO₂ technologies.