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Aug 1, 2023

Fullerene-pillared porous graphene with high water adsorption capacity

Posted by in categories: materials, particle physics

Separation processes are essential in the purification and concentration of a target molecule during water purification, removal of pollutants, and heat pumping, accounting for 10–15% of global energy consumption. To make the separation processes more energy efficient, improvement in the design of porous materials is necessary. This could drastically reduce energy costs by about 40–70%. The primary approach to improving the separation performance is to precisely control the pore structure.

In this regard, porous carbon materials offer a distinct advantage as they are composed of only one type of atom and have been well-used for separation processes. They have large pore volumes and surface areas, providing in gas separation, , and storage. However, pore structures generally have high heterogeneity with low designability. This poses various challenges, limiting the applicability of carbon materials in separation and storage.

Now, a team of researchers from Japan, led by Associate Professor Tomonori Ohba from Chiba University and including master’s students, Mr. Kai Haraguchi and Mr. Sogo Iwakami, has fabricated fullerene-pillared porous (FPPG)—a carbon composite comprising nanocarbons—using a bottom-up approach with highly designable and controllable pore structures.

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