Author Spotlight: Standardizing the Development of Amine-Based Silica Composites as CO2 Adsorbents for Direct Air Capture

Scientists here at NIST are developing critical measurement science and benchmark materials to accelerate innovation and explore timely, effective, and scalable direct air capture, or DAC, for carbon-dioxide removal from the atmosphere. This work focuses on promoting best practices for preparation, measurement, and reporting of amine-functionalized silica composites for DAC applications. This protocol addresses outstanding research challenges and reproducible synthetic procedures for DAC materials by providing clear guidelines and conditions while identifying critical steps.

In addition, we aim to enable a meaningful comparison of carbon-dioxide capabilities of these materials through clear documentation of specific adsorption experimental parameters. We are turning our efforts towards characterizing benchmark materials and developing standard techniques to foster greater comparability and confidence in reported results.