Effect of water on the physical properties and carbon dioxide capture capacities of liquid-like Nanoparticle Organic Hybrid Materials and their corresponding polymers

Binary systems composed of liquid-like Nanoparticle Organic Hybrid Materials (NOHMs) and the secondary fluid (i.e., water) were prepared, and their thermal stabilities, densities, viscosities, and CO2 absorption capacities were investigated. Recent work has suggested NOHMs as an alternative CO2 capture media with interesting chemical and physical tunability. Anhydrous CO2 capture solvents often degrade when they are exposed to water, while flue gas generally contains about 8-16% water. Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the effect of water on the NOHMs' properties relevant to CO2 capture as well as the chemical and thermal stabilities of H2O-loaded NOHMs. It was found that water acted as an antisolvent of NOHMs, and therefore, caused a decreased CO2 capture capacity. On the other hand, the results indicated that while water did not affect the NOHMs' thermal stability, it significantly helped lowering their density and viscosity. In order to investigate the effect of intermolecular interactions among two fluids on the density and viscosity, the excess volumes and viscosity deviations were calculated and correlated with Redlich-Kister equations. The trends revealed the existence of strong intermolecular interactions between water molecules and the poly(ethlyne glycol) component of NOHMs, which may have caused the drastic decrease in the NOHMs' viscosity with the addition of water. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.