Imine-Linked Polymer Based Nitrogen-Doped Porous Activated Carbon for Efficient and Selective CO(2) Capture

The preparation of nitrogen-doped activated carbon (NACs) has received significant attention because of their applications in CO(2) capture and sequestration (CCS) owing to abundant nitrogen atoms on their surface and controllable pore structures by carefully controlled carbonization. We report high-surface-area porous N-doped activated carbons (NAC) by using soft-template-assisted self-assembly followed by thermal decomposition and KOH activation. The activation process was carried out under different temperature conditions (600–800 °C) using polyimine as precursor. The NAC-800 was found to have a high specific surface area (1900 m(2) g(−1)), a desirable micropore size below 1 nm and, more importantly, a large micropore volume (0.98 cm(3) g(−1)). NAC-800 also exhibits a significant capacity of CO(2) capture i.e., over 6. 25 and 4.87 mmol g(−1) at 273 K and 298 K respectively at 1.13 bar, which is one of among the highest values reported for porous carbons so far. Moreover, NAC also shows an excellent separation selectivity for CO(2) over N(2).