Issue 13, 2023

Direct synthesis of organic salt-derived porous carbons for enhanced CO2 and methane storage

Abstract

The direct carbonisation of a carbon-rich organic salt, potassium phthalimide (PPI), generates porous carbons with porosity suitable for energy-related gas storage applications. The PPI-derived carbons exhibit high surface area of up to 2889 m2 g−1 and pore volume of up to 1.36 cm3 g−1, and the porosity can be readily tailored by choice of the carbonisation temperature and, to a lesser extent, carbonisation time. Depending on the preparation conditions, the PPI-derived carbons can be tailored to have ideal porosity for CO2 uptake at low pressure, which at 25 °C reaches 1.7 mmol g−1 and 5.2 mmol g−1 at 0.15 bar and 1 bar, respectively. The carbons also exhibit very impressive methane storage capacities of up to 18.2 mmol g−1 at 25 °C and 100 bar. An important finding is that the carbons may be readily compacted to a high packing density of up to 1.10 g cm−3 with retention of their textural properties. The consequence of the high packing density of the PPI-derived carbons, coupled with their high gravimetric methane uptake, is that they achieve exceptionally high volumetric uptake of up to 338 cm3 (STP) cm−3 at 25 °C and 100 bar, and volumetric working capacity (100–5 bar pressure swing) of 249 cm3 (STP) cm−3, which are significantly higher than most porous carbons and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). PPI is thus a very attractive precursor for the simple synthesis of porous carbons with an unrivalled mix of properties for CO2 and methane storage applications.

Graphical abstract: Direct synthesis of organic salt-derived porous carbons for enhanced CO2 and methane storage

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 Jan 2023
Accepted
03 Mar 2023
First published
06 Mar 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023,11, 6952-6965

Direct synthesis of organic salt-derived porous carbons for enhanced CO2 and methane storage

I. Alali and R. Mokaya, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023, 11, 6952 DOI: 10.1039/D3TA00044C

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements