Student Team Culina Awarded at BDC 2020
June 24, 2020
HBBE is Growing
July 10, 2020
Published in
Journal of Co2 Utilization
Abstract
In this study, we synthesized for the first time a bimetal-based inorganic-carbonic anhydrase (CA) hybrid nanoflower to immobilize CA using Cu2+ and Zn2+ instead of single metal ion. Subsequently, the synthesized bimetallic hybrid nanoflowers (CANF) were embedded into the poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)-chitosan (CS) hydrogel networks to obtain PVA/CS@CANF hydrogel membrane. The CANF exhibited a significantly higher activity recovery of 70 % compared with 35 % with CA/Zn3(PO4)2 hybrid nanoflowers and 10 % with CA/Cu3(PO4)2 hybrid nanoflowers. The PVA/CS@CANF hydrogel membrane possessed excellent mechanical strength, high catalytic activity, and were easy to flow out without centrifugation or filtration. At the same time, the PVA/CS@CANF displayed higher thermostability, storage stability, and pH stability than free CA and CANF, and superior reusability and CO2 capture capacity. The hydrogel membrane maintained more than 75 % of its original activity after 8 cycles. However, CANF only maintained 12 % of its original activity. Furthermore, the amount of CaCO3 produced by PVA/CS@CANF membrane was 9.0-fold and 2.0-fold compared with free CA and CANF, respectively. Therefore, This approach to synthesizing bimetallic-based protein hybrid hydrogel membrane could have a bright future in CO2 capture.
