Abstract
Most existing manufacturing protocols of functional carbon materials highly rely on inert media, which usually make them complicated and costly. In this work, an inert gas-free method for synthesizing oxygen-rich activated carbon has been developed. The inert gas-free synthesis is conducted simply by mixing the carbon precursor with chemical activator into a sand covered vessel followed by elevated temperature treatment under ambient atmosphere. Owing to the blocking effect of sand mulch and the overflow of self-generated pyrolysis volatiles, an in-situ pressure difference is built up to prevent air penetration, forming a local air-isolated atmosphere. Lignite-based activated carbon derived from the ambient-air process exhibits hierarchical pores with specific surface area of 823 m2/g. The hydrogen storage density of this ambient-air synthesized activated carbon is determined to be up to 0.34 wt% under 35 bar at 303 K, which is mainly attributed to the enriched oxygen-containing surface groups. DFT calculations suggest the adsorption enhancement of hydrogen follows the order of cis-COOH functionalized ≥ trans-COOH > OH functionalized activated carbon surfaces. This ambient-air strategy is potentially applicable all kind of precursors, and may open up a new avenue towards the low-cost synthesis of functional carbon materials.
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