Scalable and Robust Immobilized Carbonic Anhydrase for CO2 Reactive Absorption

Carbonic anhydrase (CA) showed promise as a rate enhancement catalyst for low-energy aqueous solvents used in CO2 reactive absorption process. Attaching enzymes on solid support surfaces and retaining them in the low temperature absorption column enhances performance lifetime and durability of the biocatalysts. Textiles are ideally suited as enzyme immobilization support and gas-liquid (G-L) contactors because they are lightweight, economical, flexible, and durable materials that can be fabricated in many shapes and have high surface areas and abundance of functional groups for chemical modification and enhanced gas liquid contacts. Biocatalytic textile contactors immobilizing CA on textile fiber surfaces will be easy to scale up in large volumes using textile manufacturing machinery and can be used either as “drop-in” for existing CO2 reactive absorption facilities or in custom fit novel configurations such as when needed for coupling with downstream CO2 utilization processes. In lab-scale testing, biocatalytic textiles were compatible with multiple different CO2 absorption solvents and with CO2 concentrations ranging from atmospheric to point-source emissions. They can be manufactured in a roll-to-roll pad-dry process using conventional textile wet processing facilities and were shown to withstand repeated washing and drying, immersion and shaking in heated solvents, and continuous testing for up to one thousand hours without performance reduction.