Synthesis of High Surface Area Carbon Nanospheres with Wrinkled Cages and Their CO2 Capture Studies

In this work, we report the synthesis protocol for carbon coated dendritic fibrous nanosilica (DFNS@Carbon) and high surface area wrinkled carbon nanospheres using phenol formaldehyde polymerization chemistry. We have shown that the choice of hard template, i.e. DFNS with different sizes and fiber density, can lead to the synthesis of carbon-coated DFNS and wrinkled carbon nanospheres with tunable properties, having high surface area (1090 +/- 50m(2)/g), large pore volume (1.18 +/- 0.02cm(3)/g) and distinct pore size distribution (from 3.5nm to 15nm). The CO2 capture value of 1.47mmol/g was obtained without any amine functionalization. This value is comparable or better than reported non-amine functionalized CO2 sorbents, indicating the contribution of textural properties and morphology of carbon cages on their CO2 capture capacity.