Hierarchical porous nitrogen-doped carbon supported MgO as an excellent composite for CO2 capture at atmospheric pressure and conversion to value-added products

The recent climate change is causing widespread concern around the world. Since anthropogenic CO2 emissions are recognized as a major contributor to this alarming phenomenon. As a result, there is an urgent need to reduce the carbon footprint and eliminate excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Carbon capture, utilization, and storage are currently the most promising solution to solve this problem. This study reports a simple method for producing a novel hierarchical porous nitrogen and carbon supported MgO material (N@MgO/C) from the abundant bio-waste and magnesium chloride. The topographies of the prepared samples were thoroughly examined by several characterization techniques. The XRD, Raman, and XPS analyses reveal the existence of graphitic carbon. FESEM, and N2 adsorption-desorption studies, reveal a hierarchical porous structure with a mesoporous texture and good surface area (258.98 m2/g). Furthermore, N@MgO/C demonstrated an excellent ability to adsorb CO2 at room temperature with maximum adsorption of 2.55 mmol/g remaining almost stable up to 4 cycles. Moreover, it exhibits good catalytic activity for the cycloaddition of CO2 with various epoxides at atmospheric pressure in the presence of CTAB under the solvent-free condition with a yield of 96% and high stability over five cycles without any modification in its morphology.

Automated summary

This study presents a simple method for producing a novel hierarchical porous nitrogen and carbon supported MgO material from abundant bio-waste and magnesium chloride. The prepared material shows excellent CO2 adsorption capacity and good catalytic activity, which is significant in terms of environmental protection and carbon reduction efforts.