UV-Activated Graphene Oxide for Carbon Capture: Application as Self-Supported Foam Adsorbent and Counterpart in Metal-Organic Framework/Graphene Oxide Hybrid Adsorbents

To follow the low-carbon environmental directives, it is imperative to develop sustainable carbon capture technologies. From an industrial viewpoint, carbon capture by adsorption shows increasing potential by virtue of energy and cost benefits. In this work, graphene oxide (GO)-based adsorbents, namely self-supported GO foam (GOF) and Cu-BTC metal-organic framework (MOF)/GO hybrids, were explored after applying UV activation on the GO. Gas adsorption evaluation indicated that UV activation of GO increased the CO2 uptake in both GOF and MOF/UV-GO, while selective adsorption of CO2 from N2 was also increased upon UV irradiation.