article · Materials Today Sustainability
Porous nitrogen-doped carbons are valuable materials for gas adsorption and energy storage devices. Salt-assisted carbonisation using hydrated metal chlorides allows the tuning of carbon structure and surface chemistry. Testing various hydrated alkali and alkaline earth salts with adenine, guanine, and glucose shows distinct chemical behaviours. Alkali chlorides such as lithium, sodium, and potassium chloride preserve the original precursor chemistry and provide minimal templating, with sodium chloride remaining largely inert. Conversely, alkaline earth chlorides actively direct material properties. Magnesium chloride acts as a potent templating agent, modifying nitrogen configurations and yielding high surface areas up to 2648 square metres per gram. Calcium chloride also introduces porosity while maintaining the underlying chemistry. Precursor choice affects morphology, as adenine and magnesium chloride generate tubular structures. Ultimately, carbons derived using magnesium chloride exhibit the strongest electrochemical performance in supercapacitors and zinc-ion capacitors.
Developing high-performance energy storage devices requires materials with precisely controlled pore structures and surface chemistries. Demonstrating how common hydrated salts dictate the properties of nitrogen-doped carbons offers a simple, tunable synthesis route. This understanding helps guide the design of tailored carbon materials suited for specific applications, including advanced supercapacitors, zinc-ion capacitors, and gas capture technologies.
This work could enable manufacturers of energy storage components to produce high-surface-area, nitrogen-doped carbon electrodes with tailored pore structures using simple salt-assisted carbonisation. Potential end users include developers of supercapacitors and zinc-ion capacitors. Because the findings are based on laboratory-scale materials synthesis and electrochemical characterisation, the technology represents early-stage research that requires further validation and process scaling before industrial implementation.
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Porous nitrogen-doped carbons are promising for energy storage and gas adsorption, with performance governed by pore structure and surface chemistry. This study examines how hydrated alkali (LiCl, NaCl, KCl) and alkaline earth (MgCl 2 , CaCl 2 ) metal chlorides affect the carbonization of molecular precursors (adenine, guanine and glucose) through templating and composition-modifying effects. Alkali chlorides largely preserve precursor composition and exhibit minimal templating, with NaCl being mostly inert. In contrast, alkaline earth chlorides strongly influence carbonization. MgCl 2 functions as an effective templating agent while inducing significant compositional changes, producing highly porous carbons with high surface areas (up to 2648 m 2 /g) and modifying nitrogen configurations. CaCl 2 primarily acts as a template, generating porosity while maintaining precursor chemistry. Precursor structure also matters: adenine forms tubular morphologies with MgCl 2 , unlike guanine. Electrochemical measurements reveal that MgCl 2 -derived carbons, particularly adenine-MgCl 2 , showed the best performance in supercapacitors and Zn-ion capacitors due to their high surface area, accessible microporosity, and moderate nitrogen content. These results demonstrate that hydrated metal chlorides provide a simple strategy to tune the structure and chemistry of nitrogen-doped carbons through salt-assisted carbonization.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.mtsust.2026.101440
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