Allison Pohlmann

Amino-functionalized cabosil has promising abilities for adsorption of CO2. The primary amine groups attached to the cabosil provided a baseline to compare other CO2 adsorbing ligands for future experimental references. The cabosil was functionalized with trimethyl aminopropylsilane through a condensation reaction. The amino-functionalized cabosil was synthesized in two ways through the use of different solvents. Initially, the solvent used was toluene, and secondly Tetrahydrofuran (THF) was used. Through the utilization of in-house thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), the toluene was found to be a more efficient solvent. The amine loading of the toluene was 1.92 ligands/nm2 the amine loading by using THF was only 1.38 ligands/nm2. The continuation of this research will expand further than the modifications of our control group, to include tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA) as well as TEPA functionalized with 1,2 - epoxybutane. This project’s initial focus was on iron nanoparticles, but made a shift to amino-functionalized silica. The shift was motivated by the fact that the functionalized silica was solid-based versus liquid, as was the case with the nanoparticles. This institution also allows for available in-house analyses when characterizing the siliceous compounds. In order to characterize the nanoparticle results, the samples required to be sent elsewhere.