Fabrication of electrospun CO2 adsorption membrane for zinc-air battery application.

• The electrospun fiber membrane has the highest CO 2 adsorption capacity of 3.42 mmol CO2 /g adsorbent at 30 °C. • The CO 2 adsorption membrane effectively filtered carbon dioxide (400 ppm in air) for up to 16 h. • Zinc-air battery with the CO 2 adsorption membrane exhibited a higher discharge capacity. Zinc-air batteries (ZABs) are an important option for energy storage applications because of their high specific capacity. However, when ZABs are operated in ambient air, the CO 2 (400 ppm) in the air can react with the alkaline electrolyte, forming carbonates, which shorten the battery lifetime. In this work, we fabricated an electrospun polystyrene (PS)/polyethylenimine (PEI) fiber membrane to capture CO 2 from ambient air before the air is admitted into a ZAB to enhance battery performance. The result show that the PS/PEI fibers have a CO 2 adsorption capacity of 3.42 mmol CO2 /g adsorbent or 7.58 mmol CO2 /g PEI at room temperature. The fibers retain 91% of their initial CO 2 adsorption capacity after 15 cycles of the adsorption–desorption process. A ZAB cell equipped with PS/PEI fibers exhibited a better discharge capacity (802 mA h/g) compared to that of a ZAB without the fibers (762 mA h/g). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]