The preparation of porous carbon from bio-based phthalonitrile resins by a non-template method: Curing, carbonization and its basic properties

Resin-based porous carbon materials are considered to be an important direction for CO2 adsorption and supercapacitors due to their controllable chemical structure, large specific surface area, and stable physicochemical properties. But at present, the main source of resin-based porous carbon materials is petroleum-based polymer materials, which is incongruous with the tenets of green chemistry. Here, a bio-based phthalonitrile precursor containing s-triazine ring structure (TDPH) was synthesized from vanillin, then a nitrogen/oxygen codoped hierarchical porous carbon with excellent properties, was prepared using TDPH via a two-step process, with urea/zinc chloride as hardener and potassium hydroxide as activator, respectively. The carbon material prepared under optimal conditions can achieve a maximum CO2 adsorption capacity of 6.81 mmol g- 1 at 273 K due to its high specific surface area (1607 m2 g- 1) and high N/O content (7.06 wt%/14.74 wt%). It is worth noting that the CO2 adsorption capacity at 298 K can still reach 96.3 % of the initial adsorption after 7 cycles. In addition, the electrochemical properties of the resultant porous carbon were tested under a 1 M H2SO4 threeelectrode system, and the highest specific capacitance at a current density of 0.1 A g- 1 was 473 F g- 1 and the specific capacitance retention can still reach 87 % after 65,000 cycles. This work broadens the source of resinbased porous carbon materials and paves a new way for the functionalization of bio-based resins.