Templated nanoporous carbons: activation, characterization and methane storage studies

DEICY BARRERA; MIRIAN CASCO; JHONNY VILLARROEL-ROCHA; CARLOS CUADRADO; JOAQUÍN SILVESTRE-ALBERO; KARIM SAPAG

Termas de Chillán

Congreso; Segundo taller Latinoamericano de Materiales de Carbono TLMC-2; 2016

Carbon porous materials are of great scientifc and technological interest due primarily to its ability tointeract with atoms, ions and molecules not only in the external surface but also in the internal surfaceof the material. Different methods of synthesis and a wide range of precursors have been studiedto obtain different carbon materials with interesting textural properties. Among these, nanoporoustemplated carbons materials have acquired great interest because of their hydrophobic nature andhigh chemical inertness. However, one of the most attractive properties is that they are hierarchicalmaterials with porosity well-defned in both microporous and mesoporous region. In addition, theyfrequently present high specifc surface areas and pore volumes making of them suitable materials forapplications in adsorption. By means of the nanocasting technique it is possible to improve the level ofstructural ordering using an inorganic matrix (template) to guide the formation of pores and producingnovel materials with a broad control of the porosity.In this work, two inorganic porous materials, SBA-15 and KIT-6 were selected as template and they wereimpregnated with sucrose as carbon precursor. After polymerization and pyrolysis steps, the templatewere removed using HF, and fnally washing and dry steps were carried out, obtaining the hierarchicalporous carbon materials (CMK-3 and CMK-8 from SBA-15 and KIT-6, respectively) which are a negativereplica of the porous structure of the templates. These carbon materials were chemically activated withKOH in order to increase its micropore volume. Finally, all the materials (SBA-15, KIT-6, CMK-3, CMK-8,CMK-3_a and CMK-8_a) were characterized by N2 adsorption-desorption at 77 K, CO2 adsorption at273 K, nonane pre-adsorption, immersion calorimetry, X-ray diffraction, SEM and TEM. All the materials(templates, carbons and activated carbons) were evaluated in the methane storage at high pressures.