LLNL researchers have developed a self-supporting structural material that promises more efficient carbon capture specifically from air, but generally from all CO2 containing gas sources. The material is produced with a liquid high-amine-content precursor polymer that is functionalized by adding on polymerizable end groups.

The novel LLNL technique uses electric fields to drive and control assembly. In the literature such methods have heretofore only formed disordered ensembles. This innovative method increases local nanocrystal concentration, initiating nucleation and growth into ordered superlattices. Nanocrystals remain solvated and mobile throughout the process, allowing fast fabrication of ordered…