Preparation of microporous carbons by using α-cyclodextrin as molecular porogen

This paper reports a novel method for increasing the micropore volume of the microporous carbons (MCs) derived from polyimide by using α-cyclodextrin (CD) as a molecular porogen. The N2 sorption results showed that the micropore volume of MCs increased from 0.15 to 0.24 cm3/g when the CD amount rose from 0% to 15% by weight, whereas the micropore width remained almost constant. The MCs were characterized by XRD, confirming the amorphous structure with two typical broad peaks at a d-spacing of 3.8 Å and 2.1 Å. Elemental analyses showed that the MCs had a high carbon content of ca. 91%.