Sustainable synthesis of alkaline metal oxide-mesoporous carbons via mechanochemical coordination self-assembly

A simple, solvent-free, solid-state self-assembly strategy for the synthesis of alkaline-metal-oxide-doped mesoporous carbons (MCs) with tunable mesopores (similar to 5-9 nm), high surface areas (up to 571 m(2) g(-1)) and large pore volumes (up to 0.65 cm(3) g(-1)) is developed via mechanochemical assembly between polyphenol-Ca2+/Mg2+ composites and F127 copolymers. Interestingly, the as-made MgO-MCs not only offer good CO2 capacities (up to 1.6 mmol g(-1) at 0.15 bar and 273 K) and competitive CO2/N-2 selectivities (up to 41) but also exhibit high dye adsorption capacities (541 mg g(-1) for methylene blue and 435 mg g(-1) for methyl orange).