Tailoring superparamagnetic nanoparticle for adsorption of carbon dioxide

Abstract. In recent years, green technologies have been extensively developed, including adsorption technology. In industrial installations, swing adsorptions are favoured for its continuous process. It also posed a large energy demands of almost 40% of overall energy supply. In a temperature swing adsorption (TSA) process, the purging or regeneration phase of the bed requires external heat, whether it to be from steam or hot gas, which largely contributed to the high demand. Hence, an extension of temperature swing adsorption was introduced to overcome the issue by using magnetize particles that can generate in-situ heat upon exposure to induction field. This study attempted to synthesize a magnetic nanoparticle that is superparamagnetic, to be embedded in metal organic framework (MOF). Superparamagnetic iron oxide (Fe3O4) was synthesised through one-pot solvothermal method using iron (III) chloride as its precursor at 250°C, for 10 hours. Synthesized Fe3O4 reported to have spherical shape from field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), with crystalline size of 0.4 nm. Highest value of magnetic saturation was 50 emu/g, as obtained from vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) test. From the VSM result, it was also firmed that superparamagnetic nanoparticles were achieved due to the absence of hysteresis loop and near zero retentivity of 0.11 emu/g. Parametric study on the reaction parameters and reactants concentration was also conducted. It was found that reaction temperature and concentration of sodium acetate able to reduce the particle size. Thus, with the result obtained, magnetite with high magnetic saturation and particle stability was tailored to be embedded with MOF to produce a magnetic framework composite.