Synthesis of High-Surface-Area Nitrogen-Doped Porous Carbon Microflowers and Their Efficient Carbon Dioxide Capture Performance

Sustainable carbon materials have received particular attention in CO2 capture and storage owing to their abundant pore structures and controllable pore parameters. Here, we report high-surface-area hierarchically porous N-doped carbon microflowers, which were assembled from porous nanosheets by a three-step route: soft-template-assisted self-assembly, thermal decomposition, and KOH activation. The hydrazine hydrate used in our experiment serves as not only a nitrogen source, but also a structure-directing agent. The activation process was carried out under low (KOH/carbon=2), mild (KOH/carbon=4) and severe (KOH/carbon=6) activation conditions. The mild activated N-doped carbon microflowers (A-NCF-4) have a hierarchically porous structure, high specific surface area (2309m(2)g(-1)), desirable micropore size below 1nm, and importantly large micropore volume (0.95cm(3)g(-1)). The remarkably high CO2 adsorption capacities of 6.52 and 19.32mmolg(-1) were achieved with this sample at 0 degrees C (273K) and two pressures, 1bar and 20bar, respectively. Furthermore, this sample also exhibits excellent stability during cyclic operations and good separation selectivity for CO2 over N-2.