ZIF-derived in situ nitrogen decorated porous carbons for CO2 capture

Abstract

Various N-doped hierarchical porous carbons were prepared by using a new mixed-ligand ZIF (zeolitic imidazolate framework) (JUC-160) as the precursor in a one-step synthetic route without any additional carbon sources or purification steps. The effect of the ZIF precursor crystal size on the textural properties of the derived porous carbons was systematically studied. Microporosity was dominant in micron-sized JUC-160 crystal derived porous carbons, while more mesopore volume was present in porous carbons obtained from nanometre-sized JUC-160 crystals. The mJUC160-900 sample, which had a high nitrogen content and micropore volume, exhibited the highest CO₂ uptake, which is 5.50 and 3.50 mmol g⁻¹ at 273 and 298 K, respectively. Moreover, the analysis based on the ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) exhibited a high adsorption selectivity for CO₂/N₂ at 298 K and 1 bar (S_ads = 29).

State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, at Jilin University China, has a long term cooperation with the Laboratory of Catalysis and Spectroscopy in Caen, at CNRS-France. Recently, Prof. Shilun Qiu's group and Prof. Valentin Valtchev's group had an international collaborative researching project entitled “Microporous materials: green synthesis for green applications”, which was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21261130584) and the French Science Foundation (ANR-12-IS08-0001-01). This project is focused on the design and synthesis of porous materials such as zeolites, metal organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs), porous aromatic frameworks (PAFs) and porous carbon materials that can find applications for clean energy storage, carbon capture, catalysis, and molecular selective sorption and separation.