From Nanosheets To Pilot Plants: Oxford–Shanghai Partnership Advances LDH Materials For Carbon Capture

A long-standing collaboration between the University of Oxford and Shanghai Jiao Tong University is translating fundamental materials chemistry into scalable technologies for capturing carbon dioxide from industrial gases, indoor air, and the atmosphere.

Carbon capture is essential for reducing emissions from industry and addressing carbon dioxide already present in the atmosphere. Yet many established capture processes rely on corrosive liquid solvents and require substantial energy for regeneration. Solid adsorbents offer a promising alternative, but they must combine high capacity, rapid uptake, long service life, low-temperature regeneration, and affordable large-scale production.

Researchers led by Professor Dermot O’Hare at the University of Oxford and Associate Professor Xuancan Zhu at School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), working with colleagues including Professor Ruzhu Wang, have developed a collaborative programme to meet these challenges using layered double hydroxides (LDHs). These low-cost and highly adaptable materials are composed of stacked, positively charged nanosheets whose composition and surface properties can be tailored for different carbon-capture applications.

Opening the layers to capture more CO₂
A central scientific advance underpinning the collaboration is Oxford’s aqueous miscible organic solvent treatment, known as AMOST. Conventional LDH particles tend to stack tightly, hiding much of their internal surface and restricting the movement of gas molecules. AMOST replaces water between the layers with an organic solvent, allowing the sheets to separate and form open, flower-like structures with much larger surface areas and more accessible pores.

The Oxford–SJTU team demonstrated that these exfoliated LDHs can host active components much more effectively. At elevated temperatures, potassium-modified LDH-derived materials achieved substantially higher CO₂ working capacities than conventional commercial materials. Detailed experimental studies also revealed how potassium promoters and the magnesium-to-aluminium ratio work together to create different adsorption sites. These findings provide a scientific basis for designing materials for industrial gas treatment, pre-combustion carbon capture, and hydrogen purification.

Capturing CO₂ from air
The collaboration subsequently extended the LDH platform from high-temperature industrial separation to low-concentration CO₂ capture. By loading or chemically grafting amines onto LDH nanosheets and their oxide derivatives, the researchers developed materials capable of selectively binding CO₂ even at the 400 parts per million found in ambient air.

One amine-impregnated LDH-derived material captured 2.27 mmol of CO₂ per gram under simulated air conditions. A complementary amine-grafted LDH achieved 1.05 mmol per gram, reached 70% of its full capacity within 30 minutes and showed negligible performance degradation during repeated adsorption–desorption cycles. More recent studies have further improved amine loading, low-temperature regeneration, oxidative stability, and performance under humid conditions. These developments make the materials relevant not only to direct air capture but also to indoor air management, where safe operation and regeneration below 70 ^°C are particularly important.

The partnership has also contributed to the wider international understanding of direct air capture. A joint review published in Chemical Society Reviews brought together developments in adsorbent design, material shaping, adsorption mechanisms, process engineering, energy integration, and techno-economic analysis, providing a roadmap for translating laboratory materials into practical systems.

Designing the complete capture process
A high-performing powder is only the starting point for a practical carbon-capture technology. Large volumes of gas must pass through an adsorber with minimal resistance, while heat and CO₂ must move rapidly during adsorption and regeneration. The collaboration therefore connects Oxford’s expertise in advanced materials chemistry with SJTU’s strengths in adsorption processes, thermal systems, structured contactors, and pilot-scale engineering.

The SJTU team developed steam-assisted temperature–vacuum swing adsorption, or S-TVSA, in which low-pressure steam heats the adsorbent and helps release concentrated CO₂. Because the process can be driven by low-grade industrial waste heat, solar heat, or heat pumps, it provides a route towards lower-energy regeneration. Process modelling has also identified operating conditions that balance CO₂ purity, productivity, and energy consumption.

The researchers have additionally used three-dimensional printing to shape LDH-derived adsorbents into open monoliths suitable for gas–solid contactors. These structures contain more than 90% active adsorbent while providing low-resistance channels for air flow. Under direct-air-capture conditions, an optimised monolith achieved a CO₂ uptake of 1.82 mmol per gram, together with good adsorption kinetics and cycling stability.

From laboratory synthesis to pilot demonstration
The programme has followed a continuous path from discovery to application. High-performance functionalised LDH adsorbents were demonstrated in 2019, followed by patent activity on structured CO₂ adsorbents in 2021. In 2023, the researchers completed a steam-purge, dual-column bench system with a gas-handling capacity of 50 Nm³ per hour. By 2025, the material synthesis route had been enlarged to 50 kg per batch, while retaining the nanosheet morphology, surface area, and pore structure required for efficient CO₂ capture. In 2026, the S-TVSA technology progressed to tonne-scale direct-air-capture pilot testing.

The 50 kg production route replaces laboratory procedures with safer industrial raw materials, lower-cost solvents, and options for solvent recovery. After optimisation, the estimated material production cost could be reduced to US$16.7 per kilogram of adsorbent. Importantly, the scaled material retains the open nanosheet structure and CO₂ adsorption performance observed in laboratory samples, demonstrating that the underlying chemistry can be transferred to much larger production volumes.

Towards commercial deployment
The next phase of the collaboration will focus on validating prototypes under realistic operating conditions, including oxygen, moisture, temperature fluctuations, and extended adsorption–desorption cycling. Potential applications include CO₂ capture from industrial flue gas, direct air capture, indoor, and building air management, and the supply of concentrated CO₂ for storage or utilisation.

The SJTU team has been selected through a public tender for a proposed RMB 3.5 million project to develop an LDH-based testbed targeting 20 tonnes of CO₂ capture per year from waste-incineration flue gas. Discussions are also under way with industrial partners interested in using low-temperature-regeneration LDH materials for controlling CO₂ concentrations in buildings and air-conditioning systems.

At Oxford, Professor O’Hare’s team is exploring the commercial supply of highly porous magnesium-based materials, including LDHs. SJTU can complement this effort through adsorbent evaluation, material shaping, thermodynamic-cycle design, system integration, and pilot-scale demonstration. By combining Oxford’s expertise in advanced materials chemistry with SJTU’s capabilities in adsorption engineering and scale-up, the partnership aims to deliver not simply improved laboratory powders, but reliable materials, devices, and processes that can operate under real carbon-capture conditions.

Together, the partners have established an innovation pathway extending from nanoscale material design and mechanistic understanding to kilogram-scale production, structured adsorbers, and pilot systems. This bilateral collaboration demonstrates how fundamental chemistry and engineering can work together to accelerate the transition of carbon-capture technologies from academic research towards practical and commercial deployment.