{"692943":{"#nid":"692943","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Researchers Develop Simple Modification to Improve Commercial Resin for Direct Air Capture","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETo mitigate climate change, direct air capture of carbon dioxide (CO\u2082) from the atmosphere has emerged as an increasingly attractive option for limiting global warming. But scaling up systems to remove and safely store enough CO\u2082 faces major obstacles, according to researchers at the Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThey cite climate models estimating that limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius could require removing approximately 10 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually by 2050, increasing to 20 billion tons per year by 2100. Current DAC systems remove only thousands of tons of CO\u2082 annually.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne challenge is improving the solid sorbents that capture CO\u2082 from ambient air. In collaboration with CarbonCapture Inc., researchers in ChBE have shown that a simple, one-step modification can upgrade a commercial amine resin into a more efficient and durable sorbent for CO\u2082 capture. They \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/sciadv.aeg5572\u0022\u003Epublished their findings\u003C\/a\u003E in \u003Cem\u003EScience Advances\u003C\/em\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAchieving economically viable DAC demands major improvements in solid sorbent design and performance,\u201d said study author Professor Christopher W. Jones of ChBE, who noted that the benefits of DAC include its potential scalability, modest land-use requirements, flexibility in plant locations, and access to extensive geological reservoirs for long-term CO\u2082 storage.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EImproving a Commercial Sorbent\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJones and his collaborators found a way to improve the performance of Lewatit VP OC 1065, a commercially available resin already considered a benchmark in the DAC field. The material works for DAC because it\u2019s studded with amine groups, which are chemical sites that grab CO\u2082 molecules as air passes through the resin.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERather than design a new sorbent, the researchers built on previous Georgia Tech studies with PPI (poly(propyleneimine)), a polymer that has shown advantages in both CO\u2082 capture and durability. They developed a simple grafting process that grows PPI directly from amine sites already present on the commercial resin, increasing its ability to capture CO\u2082.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe process involved soaking the resin in a small, inexpensive molecule called azetidine along with a small amount of acid, and then heating the mixture for two days.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers found the upgraded resin captured about 75 percent more CO\u2082 than the untreated version under dry conditions that mimic open air, where CO\u2082 makes up only about 400 parts per million of the surrounding gas.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe material also performed well under simulated industrial flue-gas conditions, where CO\u2082 is far more concentrated, capturing more than 50 percent more than the untreated resin.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team also tested the resin across temperatures ranging from 25 degrees Celsius down to -20 degrees Celsius and across a wide range of humidity levels. In humid air, the modified resin outperformed the original at every temperature tested, though its advantage disappeared in very cold, dry conditions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEnhancing Durability\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESorbents used in DAC need to survive repeated use, cycling between capturing CO\u2082 and being heated to release it. Amine-based materials are known to degrade over time when exposed to oxygen. But the branched bPPI chains added by the researchers to the sorbent reduced oxidative degradation by about half.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn tests that simulated 150 rounds of capture and release from industrial exhaust, the modified resin held up significantly better than the original material, the researchers found.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThese commercial resins are already leading candidates for large-scale carbon capture deployment,\u201d said Arkaprabha Giri, a former postdoctoral researcher in Jones\u2019 lab who is the study\u2019s lead author. \u201cIf we can meaningfully boost their performance with a process this simple, that\u2019s a real opportunity to speed up deployment without waiting on an entirely new generation of materials.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudy co-author Omid Ghaffari Nik, Ph.D., vice president of materials science and process at CarbonCapture Inc., said that bringing down the steep cost of DAC is a crucial goal.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe U.S. Department of Energy has set a target of atmospheric CO\u2082 capture and storage at less than $100 per net metric ton, emphasizing the need for innovation in sorbent-based DAC systems,\u201d Nik said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe use of an existing commercial resin and readily available chemicals could offer advantages in eventually scaling up the process, the researchers said. They successfully applied the same method to a second commercial resin, Purolite A110, suggesting the approach isn\u0027t limited to one product.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team has filed a provisional patent and is now working to extend the technique to other amine-based materials, with the aim of scaling the process from lab quantities to the industrial scale.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECITATION: Arkaprabha Giri, UnJin Ryu, Jiaqi Zhang, Opeyemi Ojelade, Wenyang Zhao, Jacob Hoffman, Mark Robertson, Jordi Esp\u00edn, Madison Nichols, Surya Parker, Omid Ghaffari Nik, and Christopher W. Jones, \u0022\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/sciadv.aeg5572\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EIn situ\u003C\/em\u003E azetidine polymerization elevates the performance of commercial polymer resin sorbents in carbon dioxide capture\u003C\/a\u003E,\u0022 \u003Cem\u003EScience Advances\u003C\/em\u003E, 2026\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers have shown that a simple, one-step modification can upgrade a commercial amine resin into a more efficient and durable sorbent for CO\u2082 capture. They published their findings in \u003Cem\u003EScience Advances\u003C\/em\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers have shown that a simple, one-step modification can upgrade a commercial amine resin into a more efficient and durable sorbent for CO\u2082 capture"}],"uid":"27271","created_gmt":"2026-09-30 17:10:58","changed_gmt":"2026-09-30 18:20:09","author":"Brad Dixon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-09-30T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-09-30T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"681310":{"id":"681310","type":"image","title":"co2clouds.jpg","body":null,"created":"1790788281","gmt_created":"2026-09-30 17:11:21","changed":"1790788281","gmt_changed":"2026-09-30 17:11:21","alt":"Clouds with CO2 spelled in clouds","file":{"fid":"265682","name":"co2clouds.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/09\/30\/co2clouds.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/09\/30\/co2clouds.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2549260,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/09\/30\/co2clouds.jpg?itok=h2DqEjPR"}},"681311":{"id":"681311","type":"image","title":"ChrisJones9-2016.jpg","body":"\u003Cp\u003EProfessor Christopher W. Jones, the John F. Brock III School Chair of the Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1790788372","gmt_created":"2026-09-30 17:12:52","changed":"1790788372","gmt_changed":"2026-09-30 17:12:52","alt":"Chris Jones","file":{"fid":"265683","name":"ChrisJones9-2016.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/09\/30\/ChrisJones9-2016.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/09\/30\/ChrisJones9-2016.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2889986,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/09\/30\/ChrisJones9-2016.jpg?itok=E4P8kWcu"}}},"media_ids":["681310","681311"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"1240","name":"School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"141","name":"Chemistry and Chemical Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187252","name":"Direct air capture"},{"id":"7508","name":"carbon dioxide"},{"id":"182890","name":"Carbon Dioxide Atmosphere"},{"id":"188776","name":"go-research"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrad Dixon, braddixon@gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["braddixon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}