Chapter 3: Nanotechnology for CO₂ Capture, Storage, and Conversion

In past decades, the excessive emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere have unexpectedly caused serious global warming, which has brought about a great crisis for environmental sustainability and Earth's life cycle. Therefore, more and more researchers have recently contributed considerable efforts to develop various effective strategies for tackling the high concentration of CO₂. Particularly, the utilization of nanotechnology is capable of producing diversified nanomaterials to realize CO₂ capture, storage, and conversion with greatly improved performance. In this chapter, the important developments in these fields are overviewed to emphasize the outstanding functions and promising applications of nanostructured materials. Typically, porous nanomaterials with special surface groups can adsorb CO₂ with high capacity from the air atmosphere, and metal and metal oxide nanohybrids can significantly facilitate the conversion of CO₂ into useful by-products via photocatalytic and electrocatalytic reactions. After introducing these interesting advances, further trends and possible challenges are discussed rationally for guiding the utilization of future nanotechnology in the removal of CO₂ or other greenhouse gases.