Mesoporous Carbons with Hexagonally Ordered Pores Prepared from Carbonated Soft-Drink for CO2 Capture at High Pressure

Self-activated highly ordered mesoporous carbon (MCS) materials with extremely high specific surface areas and tunable pore diameters have been realized by using carbonated soft drink coca-cola (R) as a precursor and mesoporous silica SBA-15 as a structure directing mould. Lower angle powder XRD analysis, N-2 sorption data and high resolution TEM images divulge the existence of regularly arranged well ordered mesopores and high surface area of up to 1635 m(2).g(-1) in the obtained MCS materials. The carbonates, colouring agents, phosphoric acid and sulfuric acid present in the coca-cola (R) are the main ingredients for the dopants and the self-activation which helps in creating large specific surface area and huge pore volume in the final mesoporous carbon materials. XPS analysis reveals the successful in situ doping of phosphorous, sulphur and nitrogen in the MCS samples without using any external reagents or processes. MCS materials have been used as adsorbents for CO2 capture. Among the materials studied, MCS-150 having large pore diameter, high specific surface area and pore volume shows a tremendous CO2 adsorption capacity of 26 mmol.g(-1) at 0 degrees C and high pressure of 30 bar, which is considerably higher than the values reported for conventional activated carbon, MWCNTs and mesoporous carbon CMK-3 prepared from sucrose precursor. This high CO2 adsorption capacity of MCS-150 is mainly due to the synergistic effects of the excellent textural parameters and the functional elements present on the surface of the mesoporous carbon.