Tailored pore structure of ZIF-8/chitosan-derived carbonaceous adsorbent by introducing mesoporous silica nanoparticles for superior CO 2 uptake

AbstractAbstractThe shaped hierarchical porous carbon derived from ZIF-8, MSNs (mesoporous silica nanoparticles) and CS (chitosan) has been prepared by in situ assembly and post-annealing process. By tunning carbonization temperatures (from 450 to 650 °C), a series of CS/ZIF-8/MSNs carbonaceous millimetre-sized spheres with honeycomb internal structures and hierarchical pores have been developed for CO2 uptake. CS/ZIF-8/MSNs-525 (the sample treated at 525 °C) exhibited a higher CO2 capacity (1.32 mmol/g, 1 atm) than that of other samples due to its appropriate mesopores (∼11 nm), micropores (∼0.73 nm) and BET surface area (∼459.2 m2g−1). The XRD pattern of CS/ZIF-8/MSNs-525 suggested that MSNs would not affect sample structure, which performed largely maintained ZIF-8 diffraction. The SEM/EDS image of CS/ZIF-8/MSNs-525 showed that MSNs (∼50 nm) has been well decorated onto the surface of ZIF-8 by in situ assembly and carbonization, thus indicating a hierarchical structure formed. In addition, the TG-MS technology has been also utilized to clarify that MSNs assembly would not affect the carbonization process during the formation of CS/ZIF-8/MSNs-525. Moreover, the addition of MSNs facilitated a proper pore structure and higher CO2 capacity of CS/ZIF-8/MSNs-525 compared with that of CS/ZIF-8 carbon spheres (0.9 mmol/g, 1 atm). Particularly, the CS/ZIF-8/MSNs-525 exhibited excellent stability and recyclable performance after CO2 adsorption in 10 adsorption-desorption cycles. This MSNs assembly strategy could induce a simple way for obtaining novel shaped carbonaceous adsorbent for superior CO2 uptake in industrial fields.Graphical AbstractKeywords: CO2 uptakemesoporous silicasolid sorbent AcknowledgementsDr. Fangyuan Gai would like to thank Jilin University and Research institute of Jilin petrochemical Co.Ltd for postdoctoral fellowship.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by Youth Science and Technology Talent Innovation and Entrepreneurship Project of Changchun Science and Technology Bureau (No. 21QC06), the State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Dalian University of Technology (KF 2007) and Jilin Province Science and Technology Department International Science and Technology Cooperation Project (20210402068GH).