Poly (ionic liquid) for shaped functional carbons

SEBASTIAN SOLL; QIANG ZHAO; YONGJUN MEN; JUAN MANUEL BALACH; MARKUS ANTONIETTI; JIAYIN YUAN

New Orleans, Louisiana

Encuentro; 245th National Spring Meeting of the American-Chemical-Society (ACS); 2013

Carbon has abundant allotropic forms and is a very versatile material with tremendous potential. The incorporation of nitrogen into carbon nanostructures on an atomic level is for some applications highly appreciated and for instance responsible for an enhanced electronic conductivity and catalytic activity. Among a variety of precursor possibilities, imidazolium- and pyridinium-based poly(ionic liquid)s or polymerized ionic liquids (PILs) have emerged very recently as a new and effective precursor for shaped nitrogen-doped carbon-based nanomaterials. The ionic liquid moieties in the PIL matrix worked as the major carbon source and enabled a high carbonization yield due to their intrinsic high thermal stability. Meanwhile the sp 2 nitrogen atoms in the imidazolium and pyridinium cation rings facilitated easy incorporation of nitrogen into the graphitic configurations at elevated temperatures. Due to the polymer nature, PILs could be straightforward processed by a good many of processing techniques into various morphologies, which would be in turn converted into carbons of the same geometry. In this contribution, our attempts to make use of PILs for shaped nitrogen-doped carbons will be demonstrated. Carbons with high nitrogen content and in various forms, such as thin film, fiber, membrane, hollow sphere, tunes, monolith, foam, etc. were prepared via the PIL route. Their versatile applications in catalysis and energy harvesting and storage were discussed.