Abstract
3-dimensionally interconnected macroporous carbons are versatile materials that can be used in catalysis, electrochemical devices, and separation technology. Herein, the synthesis of a nitrogen doped carbonaceous material with a well-defined nanoarchitecture via nano-casting is demonstrated. A novel carbon source, a task-specific protic salt, has been proposed to create nitrogen doped carbon by direct carbonization within the pores of controlled macroporous glass. After the removal of macroporous glass from the composite using an aqueous sodium hydroxide solution and upon further heat treatment, an oxidation resistant doped carbon with high nitrogen content (6 mass %) is obtained. The materials formed during the different stages of the nano-casting process exhibit interesting properties such as hierarchical porosity, very high nitrogen content (15 mass %), and increased oxidational stability. A combination of different properties to create tailor-made materials for different applications using this technique is possible.
Highlights
Protic salts (PS) are an emerging class of materials for creating doped carbon because they can be directly carbonized by a simple heat treatment step (Zhang et al, 2015b)
In the right-hand side image of Figure 2, the expected pore wall thickness of around 100 nm can be readily observed along with macropores in the range of 50–75 nm. These results confirm that the 100 nm pores of the starting controlled porous glass (CPG) used were transformed into pore walls of the carbon replica and the pore walls of the CPG were transformed into the pores of the carbon replica during the nanocasting process
The thick walls of the heattreated macroporous carbon replica as seen in the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images may have had a positive impact on the thermal stability of the carbon replica
Summary
Protic salts (PS) are an emerging class of materials for creating doped carbon because they can be directly carbonized by a simple heat treatment step (Zhang et al, 2015b). They offer the distinct advantage of control over the chemical character of the prepared carbon by simple tuning of the chemistry of the constituents of the PS. Previous reports on direct carbonization of PS were focused on micro- (pore size < 2 nm)/mesoporous (pore size between 2 and 50 nm) doped carbons prepared with or without an inorganic porous scaffold. A precise control of mesoporosity can be achieved by applying an inorganic mesoporous scaffold with the well-known technique of nano-casting (Paraknowitsch et al, 2010b; Fellinger et al, 2012; Hasché et al, 2012; Sakaushi et al, 2015; Zhang et al, 2015a; Tzialla et al, 2016)
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