Nanoconfinement-driven energy-efficient CO capture and release at high pressures on a unique large-pore mesoporous carbon

Szab, L.*; Inoue, Mizuki*; Sekine, Yurina   ; Motokawa, Ryuhei   ; Matsumoto, Yusuke*; Nge, T. T.*; Ismail, E.*; Ichinose, Izumi*; Yamada, Tatsuhiko*

Here, we developed a large-pore mesoporous carbon with pore sizes centered around 20-30 nm using a templated technical lignin. During the soft-templating process, unique cylindrical supramolecular assemblies form from the copolymer template, distinct from other systems reported thus far. This peculiar nanostructuring takes place due to the presence of polyethylene glycol (PEG) segments on both the Pluronic template and the PEG- grafted lignin derivative (glycol lignin). A large increase in CO uptake occurs on the resulting large-pore mesoporous carbon at 270 K close to the saturation pressure, owing to capillary condensation.