Durable and Versatile Immobilized Carbonic Anhydrase on Textile Structured Packing for CO2 Capture

Abstract

High-performance carbon dioxide (CO2)-capture technologies with low environmental impact are necessary to combat the current climate change crisis. Durable and versatile “drop-in-ready” textile structured packings with covalently immobilized carbonic anhydrase (CA) were created as efficient, easy to handle catalysts for CO2 absorption in benign solvents. The hydrophilic textile structure itself contributed high surface area and superior liquid transport properties to promote gas-liquid reactions that were further enhanced by the presence of CA, leading to excellent CO2 absorption efficiencies in lab-scale tests. Mechanistic investigations revealed that CO2 capture efficiency depended primarily on immobilized enzymes at or near the surface, whereas polymer entrapped enzymes were more protected from external stressors than those exposed at the surface, providing strategies to optimize performance and durability. Textile packing with covalently attached enzyme aggregates retained 100% of the initial 66.7% CO2 capture efficiency over 71-day longevity testing and retained 85% of the initial capture efficiency after 1-year of ambient dry storage. Subsequent stable performance in a 500 h continuous liquid flow scrubber test emphasized the material robustness. Biocatalytic textile packings performed well with different desirable solvents and across wide CO2 concentration ranges that are critical for CO2 capture from coal and natural gas-fired power plants, from natural gas and biogas for fuel upgrading, and directly from air.