Efficient N-Doped Porous Carbonaceous CO₂ Adsorbents Derived from Commercial Urea-Formaldehyde Resin

Abstract

The porous carbons have attracted tremendous interest for CO2 capture application thanks to their abundant availability and tunable physical properties. However, they suffer from insufficient CO2 utilization performance due to the poor active sites on their surface. Herein, we report for the first time the fabrication of urea-formaldehyde resin-derived N-rich porous carbon via two-step synthetic routes with physical carbonization followed by KOH activating. The optimized sample included 9.87 wt % N exhibit notable CO2 uptake capacities (5.42 and 3.53 mmol g–1 at 0 and 25 °C at 1 bar) and high selectivity efficiency of 23 between CO2 and N2 at ambient pressure. Overall, on the basis of the in-depth characterization techniques, the advanced textural properties and incorporation of nitrogen into carbon surfaces contribute to increasing the CO2 uptake capacity and selectivity efficiency.

Polyacrylonitrile-Derived N-Doped Nanoporous Carbon Fibers for CO2 Adsorption

“…As shown in Figure b, the adsorption process was very fast, arriving at 95% of equilibrium CO 2 adsorption capacity within 7 min. The kinetic result further support that this polyacrylonitrile-derived nitrogen-doped nanoporous carbon fiber can shorten the cyclic operating time and improve the work efficiency in the actual CO 2 capture process. − …”

Reaction-induced macropore formation enabling commodity polymer derived carbons for CO2 capture

“…26 Notably, various dopants can be used to fabricate porous carbons with a controlled heteroatom content. [27][28][29][30][31] Alternatively, a simple method to prepare nitrogen-doped carbons is through direct pyrolysis of heteroatom-containing polymeric precursors or biomass, 32 including polyacrylonitrile, 33 commercial urea-formaldehyde resin, 34 mesitylene, 35 and waster chestnut shell; 36 their derived carbons can exhibit a relatively high CO 2 uptake performance, which are in the range of 3.5 mmol g À1 -7 mmol g À1 at 1 bar. In general, both chemical activation and heteroatom doping are viable methods to enhance CO 2 uptake, enabled by the presence of micropores for increasing sorption sites, and the improved affinity of CO 2 molecules to the carbon framework.…”

One-Pot Synthesis of N-Rich Porous Carbon for Efficient CO2 Adsorption Performance

“…Various physical adsorbents such as carbonaceous material [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ], zeolite [ 22 ], ordered mesoporous silica [ 23 ], metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) [ 24 , 25 , 26 ], porous polymers [ 27 , 28 , 29 ] and membrane-based systems [ 30 ] have been investigated to capture CO 2 . Among these, porous carbons have been receiving significant attention for their wide-scale availability, ease of regeneration, low cost, high chemical/thermal stability, large surface area and capability of being tuned for applications not only for adsorbents but also for supercapacitors, battery electrodes and catalyst supports [ 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ].…”