Synergy of developed micropores and electronic structure defects in carbon-doped boron nitride for CO₂ capture

With the aim of relieving the serious environmental and climate issues arising from excessive emission of anthropogenic CO₂, extensive solid absorbents have been developed for CO₂ capture. Among them, porous boron nitride (BN) is considered an ideal candidate due to its high specific surface area, abundant structural defects, low density, and outstanding chemical inertness. Herein, BN absorbents were synthesized from pyrolysis of melamine-boric acid precursors, and the effect of pyrolysis temperature (900, 1000, 1050 and 1100 °C) on the properties and performances was investigated. Various characterizations were performed to evaluate the physicochemical properties and CO₂ uptake capacities of BN absorbents. The result demonstrated that a carbon-doped BN structure was achieved instead of a pure BN material, and the carbonization degree was enhanced with the increase of pyrolysis temperatures. BN absorbent pyrolyzed at 1100 °C exhibited the highest CO₂ adsorption capacity of 3.71 mmol/g (273 K). The reason should be that the doping of carbon in the framework of BN contributed to the formation of abundant micropores, which enhanced the physical adsorption by offering more adsorption sites. At the same time, more negative charges on BN were induced by structural defects, which favored the chemical adsorption of CO₂ by invoking charge-induced chemisorption interaction. This study clarified the role of pore structure and electronic structure defects in CO₂ adsorption capacity of carbon-doped BN, which would open up more spacious avenues for the development of promising BN-based absorbents, or even catalysts.