Boron-nitride/carbon-nanotube hybrid aerogels as multifunctional desulfurisation agents

Abstract

Porous boron nitride particles were embedded within carbon nanotube aerogels to produce electrically-conducting sorbents that combine remarkable desulfurisation performance with the capability for rapid, energy-efficient Joule-heating regeneration.

Electrically Heatable Graphene Aerogels as Nanoparticle Supports in Adsorptive Desulfurization and High‐Pressure CO2 Capture

“…Interestingly, a large increase in equilibrium capacity (123% increase) is also observed for the uptake of 4,6‐dimethyldibenzothiophene (4,6‐DMDBT), a sterically hindered organosulfur that is particularly difficult to remove via conventional desulfurisation processes. [ 35 ] It is worth noting that pure rGO aerogels (i.e., rGO aerogels without any nanoparticle loading) exhibited no measureable DBT or DMDBT uptake, i.e., there is no significant organosulfur sorption onto the rGO framework itself. The observed improvements in adsorption performance therefore exclusively stem from improved particle dispersion on the open, high‐surface‐area nanocarbon framework and the resulting higher concentration of accessible MMO sorption sites.…”

“…In addition, the electrical conductivity of rGO aerogels provides a unique opportunity for direct electrical heating of the supported sorbents, with great potential to substantially improve energy efficiency of thermally driven MMO processes and applications. While electrical heating has been demonstrated for pure rGO aerogels and boron‐nitride/carbon‐nanotube aerogels, [ 19b,35 ] this valuable additional functionality of the rGO aerogels (not available through other supports, such as nanocarbon powders, zeolites, MOFs) has not yet been explored for the technologically important MMO nanoparticle systems. Finally, there is also a substantial lack of sorption data for carbon‐supported MMO materials under realistic commercial SER operating sorption conditions.…”

High‐performance adsorptive desulfurization by ternary hybrid boron carbon nitride aerogel

“…The pore volumes of all the samples were calculated by the BJH method using the Halsey equation with Faas correction. As shown in Figure 5, the isotherms consist of a hybrid of type I and type IV curves with an H3 hysteresis loop according to the IUPAC classification, which demonstrates the presence of micropore and mesoporous structures in BCN aerogels 24,47,50,54 . It is worth noting that the specific surface area (1220 m 2 g −1 ) of BCN‐2.5 is 2.5 times that of BCN‐1 (494 m 2 g −1 ) (Table S3).…”

“…The high‐resolution XPS patterns of BCN‐1 and BCN‐2.5 are shown in Figures 4 and S2. The B1s XPS signal of BCN‐1 was deconvoluted into two characteristic peaks at 190.7 and 192.0 eV, which are assigned to B–N and B–O bonds, respectively 50 . Figure 4C shows the bonds of BCN‐2.5, which presents two peaks centered at 190.6 and 191.7 eV.…”

Light-induced levitation of ultralight carbon aerogels via temperature control

“…Aerogels 1 and metallic microlattices 2 , 3 are typical lightweight materials with large specific surface areas. As a result, they are attracting attention as structural materials as well as adsorbents 4 , 5 , energy storage materials 6 , catalyst support materials 7 , and thermal insulators 8 . To the best of our knowledge, the lightest material reported thus far is a ceramic aerogel with a density of 0.10 mg cm −3 9 .…”