[EMmim][NTf₂]—a Novel Ionic Liquid (IL) in Catalytic CO₂ Capture and ILs’ Applications

Abstract

Abstract Ionic liquids (ILs) have been used for carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) capture, however, which have never been used as catalysts to accelerate CO 2 capture. The record is broken by a uniquely designed IL, [EMmim][NTf 2 ]. The IL can universally catalyze both CO 2 sorption and desorption of all the chemisorption‐based technologies. As demonstrated in monoethanolamine (MEA) based CO 2 capture, even with the addition of only 2000 ppm IL catalyst, the rate of CO 2 desorption—the key to reducing the overall CO 2 capture energy consumption or breaking the bottleneck of the state‐of‐the‐art technologies and Paris Agreement implementation—can be increased by 791% at 85 °C, which makes use of low‐temperature waste heat and avoids secondary pollution during CO 2 capture feasible. Furthermore, the catalytic CO 2 capture mechanism is experimentally and theoretically revealed.