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 degrees C at 1 bar) and high selectivity efficiency of 23 between CO2 and N-2 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.