Controlled Synthesis of Ordered Mesoporous Carbohydrate-Derived Carbons with Flower-like Structure and N-Doping by Self-Transformation

Abstract

Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of carbohydrates is an economic and sustainable technique for the synthesis of carbon materials. However, the assembly of carbohydrates with soft templates is susceptible to hydrolysis, degradation, and relatively high HTC temperature. Thus, it is still challenging to control the HTC/soft templating of carbohydrates and prepare mesoporous carbon with specific properties. Herein, a simple and effective self-transformation strategy is proposed to improve the HTC/soft templating, which introduces an insoluble melamine sulfate into the formation processes. Mechanism studies indicate that the assembly of D-fructose with soft templates is greatly promoted by coassembling with the gradually released melamine sulfate. As a result, carbonaceous composites with a flower-like structure and N-doping were synthesized. Further, ordered mesoporous carbons with N-doping are obtained after calcination. The obtained carbons exhibit outstanding ability for heavy metal adsorption and supercapacitors. Significantly, this self-transformation strategy will open up new avenues for synthesizing carbohydrate-based functional carbons.

Mesoporous Carbon for Energy

“…Insoluble melamine sulphates were introduced to direct the HTC/F127 procedure [33]. During this process, melamine sulphates were co-assembled and copolymerized with fructose, and further in situ transformed into OMC products with N-doping.…”

A dual templating route to three-dimensionally ordered mesoporous carbon nanonetworks: tuning the mesopore type for electrochemical performance optimization

“…38,41 Significantly, the OMCNW-c shows a very excellent cycling stability with 99.1% retention even after 10000 cycles of charging and discharging at a high current density of 2 A/g (Figure 3f). It is obvious that OMCNW-c (0.5 Ω) and OMC-S (0.7 Ω) possess lower charge transfer resistance than that of OMCNW-h (0.8 Ω), further confirming that 3D cubic mesopores can afford a shorter and faster mass diffusion pathway than that of 2D hexagonal mesopores.…”

Hydrothermal synthesis of manganese oxide encapsulated multiporous carbon nanofibers for supercapacitors

“…Up to now, a number of synthetic strategies have been developed to prepare carbon nanofibers (CNFs) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs), such as high-voltage arc discharge [1], chemical vapor deposition [6], laser ablation [7], and high-temperature hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of organic compounds [8]. Compared with the other techniques, achieving functional carbonaceous materials via the recently rediscovered HTC procedure is more energetically favorable and sustainable because renewable carbon sources are used at low temperatures (130-250 °C ) in aqueous media [9][10][11][12][13][14]. For example, a successful template-directed HTC method was reported to prepare CNFs that Nano Res.…”