Sulphur as medium: Directly converting pitch into porous carbon

Pitch is an abundant and cheap byproduct, however, the upgrading of pitch into high value materials has been rarely explored. To convert the chemically inert pitch into porous carbon, activating agents are generally required while the high cost of current approach makes the commercialization of pitch-derived porous carbon difficult. Considering the hydrophobic solubility, wide temperature range as liquid, favorable trend to form organized clusters/aggregations and low boiling point for easy evaporation at high temperature, element sulfur is introduced as reaction medium to dissolve and carbonize pitch into carbon material. After the evaporation and recovery (-95 wt%) of gaseous sulfur, plenty of pores (589 m(2)g(-1)) together with element sulfur (up to-18 wt %) are directed into carbon materials. The S-doped carbon exhibits good catalytic activity in selective oxidation of aromatic sulfides (Conv. > 90% Sel. > 90%). Moreover this sulfur-mediated method applies to raw pitches from coal-tar to petroleum and can scale up to kilogram level.

Automated summary

Researchers have proposed a new method to convert pitch into porous carbon material by using sulfur as a reaction medium, resulting in sulfur-doped carbon with excellent catalytic activity. This method is applicable to raw pitches from different sources and can be scaled up for mass production.