Recent advances and progress in the development of graphene-based adsorbents for CO2 capture

With the current high consumption of fossil fuels and the rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, there is a strong need for energy efficient and selective capture of CO2 from fossil-fuelled power plants and other large industrial sources. Among the various adsorbents explored by the scientific community for CO2 removal from flue gases, graphene is receiving increased attention because of its unique molecular structure and many exciting properties such as high mechanical strength, excellent thermal conductivity, good chemical stability, large accessible surface area, and tunable porosity. In addition, the facile surface functionalization of graphene leads to production of innovative graphene-based materials that have the potential to be applied as advanced next-generation CO2 adsorbents. As a consequence, graphene and its derivatives have been the subject of intense experimental investigations and theoretical studies in recent years, probing their unmatched structural versatility for CO2 abatement. This review aims at bringing together the latest developments in the rapidly evolving cross-disciplinary field of graphene-mediated CO2 adsorption and it provides new research directions for making further advances toward practical deployment of graphene-based CO2 adsorbents.