N/O-rich multilayered ultramicroporous carbon for highly efficient capture and conversion of CO2 under atmospheric conditions

Abstract

Porous carbon materials have shown great promise for the efficient capture and conversion of atmospheric CO₂, but remain challenging. In this work, activated N/O-rich multilayer ultramicroporous carbon materials for the effective capture and conversion of atmospheric CO₂ have been generated using a simple one-step method. Notably, the developed catalyst has a multilayered ultramicroporous framework and double N/O heteroatoms as active sites, which capture and activate atmospheric CO₂ for the cycloaddition reaction simultaneously, obtaining 96% yield of cyclic carbonate. Additionally, the stable recyclability of the catalyst highlights the sustainability of the efficient conversion of CO₂ to cyclic carbonates under mild conditions. Meanwhile, the low isosteric heat of CO₂ adsorption is measured to be around 14.8–19.1 kJ mol⁻¹, which means that the energy consumption of the CO₂ desorption process would be quite low in industrial application. We believe that this work has tremendous potential for industrial CO₂ capture and conversion into high-value-added products.