Current developments of hypercrosslinked polymers as green carbon resources

Abstract

Carbons and their composites are the most valuable materials in the modern field of catalysis, energy storage/conversion, and environments. In past decades, breakthroughs have been made in preparing carbon materials, such as fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and graphene. Meanwhile, the carbon materials with high surface areas, tunable pore size, heteroatom doping, and controlled morphologies also can promote their application performances in heterogeneous catalysis, drug encapsulation, electrode, and photonic devices. Hypercrosslinked polymers (HCPs) generally have high surface areas versatile synthetic routes, well-defined chemical-physical stability, and have emerged as excellent candidates for carbon precursors. More and more green and sustainable chemical synthetic methodologies have become possible to directly control particle size, surface area, chemical composition, and morphologies of carbons from the carbonization of HCPs. This graphical review demonstrates current approaches toward the synthesis of HCPs as carbon precursors following green and sustainable principles. And we also discussed the challenges and future directions of green HCPs production as carbon resources.