Interplay between oxygen doping and ultra-microporosity improves the CO2/N2 separation performance of carbons derived from aromatic polycarboxylates

Microporous carbons were prepared starting from a series of benzene polycarboxylic acids following two strategies: (i) activation- and template-free pyrolysis (ii) ion-exchange pyrolysis. The proposed synthetic strategies are facile approaches to produce highly microporous that avoid the use large amounts corrosive expensive chemical activators or templates. By varying number carboxylic acid groups, charge balancing species degree deprotonation precursors, with diverse morphologies, textural properties oxygen contents obtained their CO2 N2 sorption assessed. abundant micropores made materials suitable for adsorption at low pressure ambient temperature, achieving uptake as high 4.4 mmol g?1 25 °C 1 bar, competitive those reported porous produced using excess alkali metal based activating agents. It was found performance, in terms CO2/N2 selectivity, linked simultaneous presence ultra-micropore volume content sorbents. This suggests interplay ultra-microporosity doping matters more than features taken singularly determining separation pressure.