Influence of nitrogen moieties on CO₂ capture of Carbon aerogel

Carbon aerogel is a porous carbon material possessing high porosity and high specific surface area. Nitrogen doping reduced the specific surface area and micropores, but it furnished basic sites to improve the CO₂ selectivity. In this work, N-doped carbon aerogels were prepared with different ratios of resorcinol/melamine by using the sol-gel method. The morphological properties were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Nitrogen content was studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and the specific surface area and micropore volume were analyzed by N₂ adsorption-desorption isotherms at 77 K. The CO2 adsorption capacity was investigated by CO2 adsorption-desorption isotherms at 298 K and 1 bar. Melamine containing N-doped CAs showed a high nitrogen content (5.54 wt.%). The prepared N-doped CAs exhibited a high CO₂ capture capacity of 118.77 mg/g (at resorcinol/melamine = 1:0.3). Therefore, we confirmed that the CO₂ adsorption capacity was strongly affected by the nitrogen moieties.