CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS VOL. 29, 2012 A publication of The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering Online at: www.aidic.it/cet Guest Editors: Petar Sabev Varbanov, Hon Loong Lam, Jiří Jaromír Klemeš Copyright © 2012, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l., ISBN 978-88-95608-20-4; ISSN 1974-9791 DOI: 10.3303/CET1229035 Please cite this article as: Sae-Jae K., Saiwan C. and Tontiwachwuthikul P., (2012), Study of biopolymer modified with arginine for CO2 adsorption, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 29, 205-210 205 Study of Biopolymer Modified with Arginine for CO 2 Adsorption Krissada Sae-jae *a,b , Chintana Saiwan *a,b , Paitoon Tontiwachwuthikul c a The Petroleum and Petrochemical College, Chulalongkorn UniVersity, Chulalongkorn Soi12, Phayathai Rd., Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand b National Center of Excellence for Petroleum, Petrochemicals and Advanced Materials, Chulalongkorn Soi12, Phayathai Rd., Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand c International Test Centre for CO2 Capture , University of Regina, Canada krissada.sj@gmail.com Greenhouse gases (GHG) are not only carbon dioxide, but also methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, etc. Carbon dioxide is most concerned because it is the largest amount is mainly released into the atmosphere by anthropogenic activities, especially burning of burden fossil fuels for energy since industrialzation age. Carbon dioxide emission reduction is a global. A new type of adsorbent for carbon dioxide adsorption synthesized from biopolymer and amino acid, arginine was studied. Biopolymer- arginine was produced by reacting amino groups of biopolymer with carboxylic group of arginine.There were three effects studied to improve the degree of substitution, i.e. mole ratio of CA to biopolymer, reaction time, and mole ratio of arginine to biopolymer. The chemical structure and physical properties of biopolymer-arginine were characterized by Fourier transform infared, liquid chromatography, thermal gravimetric analysis. Result showed various degree of substitution from 5.21 to 76.41 %. 1. Introduction Emission of GHG is a major environmental concern. The problem is worldwide and affects all living things on Earth. The greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are mainly composed of water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) and ozone (O3). Among these gases, CO2 is emitted into atmosphere by human activities such as food cultivation, coal mining, oil drilling, etc. According to the Kyoto Protocol and international commitment, industrialized and developed countries have to find the ways to reduce emission of CO2, so that global warming and climate change can be managed. To deal with CO2 emission, CO2 capture and must be established. Nowadays, there are various technologies such as absorption, adsorption, membrane separation, cryogenic separation, and chemical-looping combustion to capture CO2 from industries. Carbon dioxide absorption using amine solvents is commercially available. However, there are drawbacks such as high operating cost and corrosion. Adsorption with solid adsorbents can also be used, but adsorbent still cannot cope with high concentration of CO2 adsorption capacity and it has low selectivity to CO2 capture. To increase CO2 capture capacity of adsorption technique, effective amines are often impregnated onto a solid sorbent. The objective of this research was to synthesize an adsorbent for CO2 adsorption using an amine grafted on a biopolymer solid adsorbent, which is naturally available and an environmentally friendly material with very low cost. The reaction of biopolymer-arginine showed in Figure 1.