Rapid One Pot Synthesis of Mesoporous Ceria Nanoparticles by Sol-gel Method for Enhanced Carbon Dioxide Capture

Abstract

The capture and storage of CO₂have been suggested as an effective strategy to reduce the global emissions of greenhouse gases. Hence, many studies have been carried out to develop highly efficient materials for capturing CO₂. Herein, the CO₂ capture performance of mesoporous ceria nanoparticle (MCN) was described. The MCN was synthesized under mild conditions through a sol-gel method using hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as a surfactant and further undergone a calcination process at 673 K for 3 h. The prepared MCN possess high surface area (76.0 m² g^-1) which is around 9-fold higher than that of commercial CeO₂ (8.7 m² g^-1), indicating that the organic modification using CTAB is an effective way of preparing a porous structure. The MCN exhibited high CO₂ uptake of 213.8 micromol g^-1 at 298 K and 1 bar. The prepared MCN using sol gel has shown a rapid and cost-effective method compared to the hydrothermal method.