Molten Salt Template Synthesis of Hierarchical Porous Nitrogen-Containing Activated Carbon Derived from Chitosan for CO2 Capture

Peiyu Wang; Guoheng Zhang; Wanjun Chen; Qiong Chen; Haiyan Jiao; Liwei Liu; Xiangli Wang; Xiaoyan Deng

doi:10.1021/acsomega.0c03497

Molten Salt Template Synthesis of Hierarchical Porous Nitrogen-Containing Activated Carbon Derived from Chitosan for CO₂ Capture

ACS Omega. 2020 Sep 1;5(36):23460-23467. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c03497. eCollection 2020 Sep 15.

Authors

Peiyu Wang¹, Guoheng Zhang¹, Wanjun Chen¹, Qiong Chen¹, Haiyan Jiao¹, Liwei Liu¹, Xiangli Wang¹, Xiaoyan Deng¹

Affiliation

¹ Key Laboratory for Electronic Materials of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission of PRC, College of Electric Engineering, Northwest MinZu University, Lanzhou, Gansu 730030, P. R. China.

Abstract

Here, hierarchical porous nitrogen-containing activated carbons (N-ACs) were prepared with LiCl-ZnCl₂ molten salt as a template derived from cheap chitosan via simple one-step carbonization. The obtained N-ACs with the highest specific surface area of 2025 m² g^-1 and a high nitrogen content of 5.1 wt % were obtained using low molten salt/chitosan mass ratio (3/1) and moderate calcination temperature (1000 °C). Importantly, using these N-ACs as CO₂ solid-state adsorbents, the maximum CO₂ capture capacities could be up to 7.9/5.6 mmol g^-1 at 0 °C/25 °C under 1 bar pressure, respectively. These CO₂ capture capacities of N-ACs were the highest compared to reported biomass-derived carbon materials, and these values were also comparable to most of porous carbon materials. Moreover, as-made N-ACs also showed good selectivity for CO₂/N₂ separation and excellent recyclability. The unique hierarchical porous structure of N-ACs thus provided the right combination of adsorbent properties and could enable the design of high-performance CO₂ solid adsorbents.