Biomass derived 5-hydroxymethylfurfural as carbon precursor to form hollow carbon nanospheres for CO2 capture

We prepare the hollow carbon nanospheres (HCNs) by employing SiO2 nanospheres as hard template, 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) as carbon precursor under hydrothermal conditions. The HCNs show uniform spherical morphology copied from SiO2 nanospheres and exhibit large cavity, thin shell structure with the surface area of 790 m(2) g(-1) and pore volume of 2.23 cm(3) g(-1). Owing to their large internal voids and high surface area, the HCNs exhibit a promising prospect for CO2 capture with the capacity of 3.04 mmol g(-1) at 1.0 bar and 298 K, as well as good recyclability for CO2 after ten adsorption-desorption cycles.