From waste gloves to climate tech: iNANO chemists turn nitrile rubber into CO₂ sorbents
A new feature in Chemical & Engineering News highlights research led by iNANO-affiliated chemist Troels Skrydstrup, where discarded nitrile lab and medical gloves are upcycled into solid polyamine materials that can capture and release CO₂. The work, published in Chem (Cell Press), points to a route for turning hard-to-recycle rubber waste into scalable carbon-capture sorbents.
Aarhus University chemist and group leader Troels Skrydstrup and colleagues have developed a way to upcycle discarded nitrile rubber—such as single-use lab and medical gloves—into materials that can capture carbon dioxide (CO₂). The study has now been featured by Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), highlighting its potential to address two pressing challenges simultaneously: plastic/rubber waste, as well as climate mitigation.
In the work, the team converts nitrile- and styrene-butadiene-based rubbers into non-porous, solid polyamines—a class of materials known for binding CO₂. The approach relies on transition-metal catalysis to transform nitrile groups into amines and, in some cases, introduces additional nitrile functionality before hydrogenation. The resulting materials can capture and release CO₂ via thermal swing adsorption, making them relevant for carbon capture systems where sorbents must be regenerated repeatedly.
As reported by C&EN, postdoctoral researcher Simon Stampe Kildahl evaluated whether glove-derived polyamines could perform under conditions resembling industrial flue gas. Under high-temperature conditions (around 90 °C and 10% CO₂), the upcycled polyamines showed promising uptake, approaching the performance range of established benchmark materials in comparable tests.
The broader motivation is scale: billions of gloves are produced and discarded annually, and nitrile rubber is notoriously difficult to recycle. Turning this waste stream into CO₂ sorbents could, in principle, help meet the massive projected demand for carbon-capture materials—provided the process can be made economical and robust. Key next steps include improving cost, oxidative stability, and scalability, including reducing reliance on expensive catalyst systems.
Read the paper (Chem, Cell Press):
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chempr.2025.102918<svg class="block h-[0.75em] w-[0.75em] stroke-current stroke-[0.75]" data-rtl-flip=""><use href="/cdn/assets/sprites-core-eri7ssmm.svg#304883" fill="currentColor"></use></svg>
Paper title: “CO₂ capture with post-modified nitrile- and styrene-butadiene-styrene rubbers”
Authors: Simon Stampe Kildahl, Clemens Kaussler, Ruth Ebenbauer, Thomas Balle Bech, Riccardo Giovanelli, Martin Lahn Henriksen, Mansurali Mithani, Ilke Uysal Unalan, Niels Chr. Nielsen, Troels Skrydstrup