Development of Uniform Porous Carbons From Polycarbazole Phthalonitriles as Durable CO2 Adsorbent and Supercapacitor Electrodes

Ghadeer Thani Alenezi; Narendran Rajendran; Ahmed Abdel Nazeer; Saad Makhseed

doi:10.3389/fchem.2022.879815

Development of Uniform Porous Carbons From Polycarbazole Phthalonitriles as Durable CO₂ Adsorbent and Supercapacitor Electrodes

Front Chem. 2022 Apr 25:10:879815. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2022.879815. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Ghadeer Thani Alenezi¹, Narendran Rajendran¹, Ahmed Abdel Nazeer², Saad Makhseed¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Kuwait University, Kuwait City, Kuwait.
² Petroleum Refining and Petrochemicals Research Center, College of Engineering and Petroleum, Kuwait University, Kuwait City, Kuwait.

Abstract

Advances in new porous materials have recognized great consideration in CO₂ capture and electrochemical energy storage (EES) applications. In this study, we reported a synthesis of two nitrogen-enriched KOH-activated porous carbons prepared from polycarbazole phthalonitrile networks through direct pyrolysis protocol. The highest specific surface area of the carbon material prepared by pyrolysis of p-4CzPN polymer reaches 1,279 m² g^-1. Due to the highly rigid and reticular structure of the precursor, the obtained c-4CzPN-KOH carbon material exhibits high surface area, uniform porosity, and shows excellent CO₂ capture performance of 19.5 wt% at 0°C. Moreover, the attained porous carbon c-4CzPN-KOH showed high energy storage capacities of up to 451 F g^-1 in aqueous electrolytes containing 6.0 M KOH at a current density of 1 A g^-1. The prepared carbon material also exhibits excellent charge/discharge cycle stability and retains 95.9% capacity after 2000 cycles, indicating promising electrode materials for supercapacitors.

Keywords: CO2 uptake; energy storage; network polymer; porous carbon; pyrolysis.