The remarkable activity of template-containing Mg/MCM-41 and Ni/MCM-41 in CO2 sequestration

Magnesium and nickel incorporated MCM-41 were prepared by two approaches: direct synthesis (DS) and wet impregnation (WI). The ionic template was removed by calcination. In some experiments, the ionic template was removed by calcination process and in the others it was preserved to investigate the template effect. For comparison, MgO and NiO nanoparticles were also synthesized. The catalysts were characterized by XRD, EDX-SEM, and FT-IR. The catalysts obtained were evaluated for hydration of CO2 and its precipitation as CaCO3 at room temperature. The results showed that template-containing Mg/MCM-41 and Ni/MCM-41 prepared by the DS approach have high CO2 hydration activity. This high activity is due to the presence of strong basic sites. Nano MgO and NiO also exhibited a high yield of CaCO3. It was also found that template-containing MCM-41 can be recovered easily from the reaction mixture and reused without deactivation. (c) 2017 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.