Abstract
Polymerization of furfuryl alcohol carried out using ZnCl2 or CuCl2 as Lewis acid activators was investigated by exploring various synthesis parameters in order to produce activated carbons with different porosity and metal load. The temperature of polymerization was changed according to Lewis acidity strength of the two metal chlorides: 0 °C for CuCl2 and 80 °C for ZnCl2. The polymer obtained was pyrolyzed under pure He flow or under 1000 ppm O2/He flow at 600 or 850 °C in order to produce activated carbons with specific textural features. The load and nature of the residual metal after pyrolysis were determined by ICP and XRD analyses, respectively. Copper was mostly preserved even at high pyrolysis temperature in contrast to zinc, which was almost totally lost at 850 °C. A foamy structure was detected by SEM analysis for all samples. Textural properties were determined by both N2 and CO2 physisorption; surface areas and pore size distributions were evaluated according to BET, DFT and DR models. The polymerization activated by ZnCl2 produced carbons with larger surface areas were also related to the presence of some mesopores, whereas CuCl2 promoted the prevailing formation of narrow micropores, making these materials particularly suited to H2 storage applications.
Highlights
Micro- and meso-porous carbons are widely employed in a lot of applications ranging from molecular sieve and gas storage up to catalysis [1,2]
The polymerization activated by ZnCl2 produced carbons with larger surface areas were related to the presence of some mesopores, whereas CuCl2 promoted the prevailing formation of narrow micropores, making these materials suited to H2 storage applications
On the basis of this consideration, in this paper, we explored the possibility of introducing another metal, i.e., copper, that can potentially act as a Lewis acid activator for polymerization of furfuryl alcohol in order to produce activated carbons with special adsorption features determined by the textural properties, and by the presence of a given metal, by suitably tuning the polymerization conditions
Summary
Micro- and meso-porous carbons are widely employed in a lot of applications ranging from molecular sieve and gas storage up to catalysis [1,2]. To optimize the sorption capacity of carbons, the morphological and textural features must be suitably designed [3,4]. A tailored porosity is often necessary for specific applications such as hydrogen storage requiring a high value of micropore volume to achieve large hydrogen storage capacity at room temperature [3,5]. Carbon materials are lighter than inorganic compounds, which represents an advantage for storage systems [6]. Most of carbons are obtained as powders, which limits their applicability when macroscopic morphologies are required [2]. Activated carbon in a structured form is not attainable due to the difficult cohesion of carbon powder particles requiring the use of
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