Preparation of nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbon materials by a template-free method and application to CO2 capture

The excessive emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) increases the average surface temperature of the earth through the greenhouse effect. Nitrogen-doped porous carbon materials are considered to be promising solid adsorbents for CO2 capture. Herein we report a synthesis of nitrogen-doped porous carbon materials using a template-free method. The effects of different nitrogen sources and different carbon sources on the CO2 adsorption performance of porous carbon materials were studied.The result indicated the ethylenediamine based porous carbon material showed the highest micropore volume and the most surface basic nitrogen atoms, and both lead to good CO2 adsorption performance. Moreover, it was found that the sample maintained thermal and chemical stability in a long-term (ten cycles) CO2 adsorption/desorption experiment.