Facile preparation of nitrogen-doped porous carbon from waste tobacco by a simple pre-treatment process and their application in electrochemical capacitor and CO2 capture

•A pre-treatment process is used to prepared N-doped carbon from waste biomass.•Waste tobaccos, which are limited for the disposal, are used as the raw materials.•The product shows a specific surface area and nitrogen content.•Its electrochemical performance is better than commercial activated carbon.•Its CO2 sorption performance is also better than commercial activated carbon.

Preparing nitrogen-doped porous carbons directly from waste biomass has received considerable interest for the purpose of realizing the atomic economy. In this study, N-doped porous carbons have been successfully prepared from waste tobaccos (WT) by a simple pre-treatment process. The sample calcinated at 700 °C (WT-700) shows a micro/meso-porous structures with a BET surface area of 1104 m2 g−1 and a nitrogen content of ca. 19.08 wt.% (EDS). Performance studies demonstrate that WT-700 displays 170 F g−1 electrocapacitivity at a current density of 0.5 A g−1 (in 6 M KOH), and a CO2 capacity of 3.6 mmol g−1 at 0 °C and 1 bar, and a selectivity of ca. 32 for CO2 over N2 at 25 °C. Our studies indicate that it is feasible to prepare N-enriched porous carbons from waste natural crops by a pre-treatment process for potential industrial application.

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