[CCoE Notice] Cullen College Dissertation Announcement: Xiaowei Wu-ChBE

[Hutchinson, Inez A]

[Dissertation Defense Announcement at the Cullen College of Engineering]

Understanding Structure-property Relationship of Novel Solid Materials for Rational Design of Direct Air Capture Processes



Xiaowei Wu

July 18, 2024; 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Location: AERB, Room: 320


Committee Chairs:
Praveen Bollini, Ph.D. and Ramanan Krishnamoorti, PhD

Committee Members:
Michael Harold, Ph.D. | Mim Rahimi, Ph.D. | Jiakang Chen, Ph.D

Abstract

        Direct air capture (DAC) of CO2, as one of the promising negative emission technologies, aiming on mitigating the rising trends of atmospheric CO2 concentration and global temperature, has received extensive attentions in the recent years. Adsorption-based DAC using solid adsorbents is an attractive technology route from its great potential in dropping the currently high cost of DAC processes. In this dissertation, we focus on understanding structure-property relationships of various solid materials for guiding design of next-generation materials and processes to approach affordable DAC, and integrated DAC and CO2 conversion processes. The first work performed a mechanistic study on traditional DAC sorbents amine-impregnated silica, highlighting the dominating role of aminopolymer morphology in their DAC performances. In the second study, we discovered and developed a first-of-its-kind DAC sorbent platform based on porous transition metal hydroxides, with demonstrating competitive key DAC performance metrics versus existing sorbents. The optimization strategies of pore engineering and metal doping are very effective to enhance their CO2 binding characteristics. In the third project, a new class of single-component dual function materials (DFMs) based on porous transition metal oxides was developed for integrated DAC and methanation (DACM) process. This DFMs utilize metal-oxygen sites for CO2 binding and partially reduced metal sites for hydrogenation. DACM performances of DFMs can be remarkably enhanced from rationally regulating electronic structures of pristine metal oxides by second metal incorporation. The last part reported a feasibility study of moisture swing adsorption (MSA)-DAC over metal-oxygen interfaces. The non-thermal driven CO2 sorption cycles can be achieved only by controlling water amount on sorbents at room temperature. The results presented in this dissertation serve to significantly enhance the fundamental understanding of novel solid materials that are of relevance to DAC and related applications and guide costly DAC processes toward affordable future.

[Engineered For What's Next]


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