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

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.

Automated summary

In this work, N/O-rich multilayer ultramicroporous carbon materials were successfully synthesized for the efficient capture and conversion of atmospheric CO2. The developed catalyst showed a high yield of cyclic carbonate and exhibited stable recyclability. The low energy consumption of CO2 desorption process makes this method highly suitable for industrial CO2 capture and conversion.