Sustainable mechanochemical synthesis of catalytically graphitized mesoporous carbons

Abstract

So far it is difficult to achieve both a high graphitization degree and uniform mesopores in carbons, especially via a sustainable synthesis approach. This work shows that mesoporous graphitized carbons predominantly composed of amorphous and/or partially graphitic carbon nanotubes can be obtained by a simple mechanochemical synthesis using tannins as carbon precursors, iron salt as a graphitization catalyst and block copolymer as a soft template. The one-pot synthesis relied on the fast ball milling of a Pluronic-type template, tannins, and iron salt, followed by the direct thermal treatment at a certain temperature (e.g., 750 °C) leading to mesoporous carbons with a high degree of graphitization (up to 75%), high specific surface areas up to 360 m2/g, and large mesopore volumes up to 0.40 cm3/g. Moreover, the procedure can be extended for the synthesis of highly porous activated carbons with uniform mesoporosity by adding potassium oxalate to the milling system. The procedure afforded activated mesoporous carbons with substantially uniform mesopores of about 7.7 nm, a high specific surface area of 1100 m2/g, a large pore volume of 0.84 cm3/g, and enhanced CO2 adsorption capacity up to 4.0 mmol/g at ambient conditions. This synthetic approach offers advantages in terms of scalability, simplicity, and reduced environmental impact in comparison to traditional synthesis methods.