Insight into Enhancement of CO2 Captured by Clay Minerals

Climate change and global warming recently became significant concerns due to the massive emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, predominantly CO2 gases. Therefore, it is necessary to find sustainable and inexpensive methods to capture the greenhouse gasses and protect the environment for live species. The application of naturally available and cheap adsorbents of carbon such as clay minerals became a great interest. However, the minerals prone to low storage capacity despite their high affinity to adsorb carbon. This paper aims to explore ways to improve the pore volume and surface area of two selected clay minerals, ‘montmorillonite and kaolinite’ by acid treatment to overcome their low storage capacity. This study concludes that clay minerals are inexpensive and available material sources to model the realistic conditions and apply the results of carbon capture to prevent global warming, which is one of the most critical and urgent problems in the world.