Reaction-induced macropore formation enabling commodity polymer derived carbons for CO2 capture. (16th December 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Guillen Obando, Alejandro; Robertson, Mark; Smith, Paul; Jha, Surabhi; Patton, Derek L.; Qiang, Zhe
• Is Part Of: New journal of chemistry. Volume 47:Number 3(2023)
• Page Start: 1318
• Page End: 1327
• Publication Date: 2022-12-16
• Subjects: Chemistry -- Periodicals; Chimie -- Périodiques; 540
• DOI: 10.1039/d2nj05434e
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1144-0546

Abstract

Abstract : This work demonstrates a simple and scalable method for synthesizing porous carbons with high CO2 uptake capacity. Abstract : CO2 capture from industrial point source waste streams represents an important need for achieving the global goal of carbon-neutrality. Compared with conventional liquid sorbents, solid sorbents can exhibit several distinct advantages, including enhanced lifetime and reduced energy consumption for sorbent regeneration. Considering that reducing CO2 emission is a great challenge, reaching approximately 37 billion metric tons just in 2021, ideal sorbent solutions should not only exhibit a high capture performance but also enable large scale manufacturing using low-cost precursors and simple processes. In this work, we demonstrate the use of a commodity polymer, polystyrene- block -polyisoprene- block -polystyrene (SIS), as the starting material for preparing hierarchically porous, sulfur-doped carbons for CO2 capture. Particularly, the sulfonation-crosslinking reaction enables the formation of macropores in the polymer framework due to the release of gaseous byproducts. After carbonization and activation, the highly porous structure of SIS-derived carbons is successfully retained, while their surface area can reach up to 905 m 2 g −1 . These porous carbon sorbents exhibit excellent CO2 uptake performance, reaching sorption capacities of 3.8 mmol g −1 at 25 °C and 6.0 mmol g −1 at 0 °C, as well as a high selectivity up to 43 : 1 against N2 gas under ambient conditions. Overall, our work provides an industrially viable method for "template-free" fabrication of porous carbons from commodity polyolefin-based materials, which can be employed for reducing CO2 emission from industrial plants/sectors.