Cigarette butt-assisted combustion synthesis of dolomite-derived sorbents with enhanced cyclic CO2 capturing capability for direct solar-driven calcium looping

Calcium looping (CaL) is a promising technology for CO2 capture owing to the widespread applicability and low-cost CaO-based sorbents. However, the SO2 and ash from coal combustion in O2/CO2 atmosphere for CaO regeneration is prone to cause rapid degradation for CaO-based sorbent. Hereby, a direct solar-driven CaL system is proposed to eliminate the adverse influence of coal combustion on CaO-based sorbent. Different unitary Mn-doped and binary-doped (Mn/Fe-, Mn/Cu-and Mn/Co-doped) dolomite-derived sorbents were synthesized by cigarette butt-assisted combustion method. The higher Mn doping ratio, the higher solar absorptance for unitary Mn-doped sorbent due to the gradually deepened blackness of the sample. Comprehensively considering the solar absorptance and CO2 capture performance, the unitary Mn-doped sorbent (Ca&Mg: Mn=100:10) is an optimal candidate, which has a solar absorptance of 63.6 % and a carbonation conversion of 64.3 % in the 20th cycle. Compared with the unitary Mn-doped sorbent (Ca&Mg: Mn=100:10), the binary-doped sorbent (Ca&Mg: Mn: Fe=100:5:5) exhibits a comparable CO2 capture capacity and a higher solar absorptance of 76.7 %. More importantly, the binary-doped sorbent (Ca&Mg: Mn: Fe=100:5:5) possesses the markedly faster CO2 capture rate in the early carbonation stage due to the increased lattice defect of CaO.

Automated summary

Calcium looping (CaL) is a promising CO2 capture technology, but the combustion of coal in O2/CO2 atmosphere can degrade CaO-based sorbents. A solar-driven CaL system is proposed to solve this issue.