Efficient N-Doped Porous Carbonaceous CO2 Adsorbents Derived from Commercial Urea-Formaldehyde Resin

The porous carbons have attracted tremendous interest for CO 2 capture application thanks to their abundant availability and tunable physical properties. However, they suffer from insufficient CO 2 utilization performance due to the poor active sites on their surface. Herein, we report for the first time the fabrication of urea-formaldehyde resin-derived N-rich porous carbon via two-step synthetic routes with physical carbonization followed by KOH activating. The optimized sample included 9.87 wt % N exhibit notable CO 2 uptake capacities (5.42 and 3.53 mmol g –1 at 0 and 25 °C at 1 bar) and high selectivity efficiency of 23 between CO 2 and N 2 at ambient pressure. Overall, on the basis of the in-depth characterization techniques, the advanced textural properties and incorporation of nitrogen into carbon surfaces contribute to increasing the CO 2 uptake capacity and selectivity efficiency.