Microporous Carbon and Carbon/Metal Composite Materials Derived from Bio-Benzoxazine-Linked Precursor for CO2 Capture and Energy Storage Applications

There is currently a pursuit of synthetic approaches for designing porous carbon materials with selective CO2 capture and/or excellent energy storage performance that significantly impacts the environment and the sustainable development of circular economy. In this study we prepared a new bio-based benzoxazine (AP-BZ) in high yield through Mannich condensation of apigenin, a naturally occurring phenol, with 4-bromoaniline and paraformaldehyde. We then prepared a PA-BZ porous organic polymer (POP) through Sonogashira coupling of AP-BZ with 1,3,6,8-tetraethynylpyrene (P-T) in the presence of Pd(PPh3)4. In situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry revealed details of the thermal polymerization of the oxazine rings in the AP-BZ monomer and in the PA-BZ POP. Next, we prepared a microporous carbon/metal composite (PCMC) in three steps: Sonogashira coupling of AP-BZ with P-T in the presence of a zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-67) as a directing hard template, affording a PA-BZ POP/ZIF-67 composite; etching in acetic acid; and pyrolysis of the resulting PA-BZ POP/metal composite at 500 °C. Powder X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) measurements revealed the properties of the as-prepared PCMC. The PCMC material exhibited outstanding thermal stability (Td10 = 660 °C and char yield = 75 wt%), a high BET surface area (1110 m2 g–1), high CO2 adsorption (5.40 mmol g–1 at 273 K), excellent capacitance (735 F g–1), and a capacitance retention of up to 95% after 2000 galvanostatic charge–discharge (GCD) cycles; these characteristics were excellent when compared with those of the corresponding microporous carbon (MPC) prepared through pyrolysis of the PA-BZ POP precursors with a ZIF-67 template at 500 °C.