Understanding the relationship of porosity and surface chemistry for any number of structural families remains a major challenge for successful implementation of nanoporous materials for advanced chemical enrichment and separations problems. Carbide derived carbons (CDC) represent an exciting new class of materials, which demonstrate the ability to control pore size while enhancing the adsorption potential for a wide range of gas and liquid phase adsorptives. A particular challenge is to understand the governing processes affecting the ability to tailor pore size and surface chemistry of bulk structures with the goal of developing selectivity rules for optimal design of materials.

While extensive work has been conducted on the development of porous CDCs, to date little information exists on the understanding of CDC surface functionalization and how these chemistries distributed across a range of pore dimensions affect adsorption and catalytic properties. Specifically, CDCs possessing a range of distributed pore sizes will be modified by developing chemical groups containing COH, CO, CN, and selected metal clusters, such as Au and Ti. Modified reactive CDC materials (r-CDC) will be studied with adsorbates such as CO2, N2 and CH4 to first assess interaction energies of adsorption.  Catalytic properties will be studied with chemicals such as CO, NO, and NO2 with the goal of developing improved materials for potential use in air purification.

The objective of this proposed work is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the chemical interactions of selected adsorbates with surface modified r-CDCs as a means to advance design strategies for optimal development of nanoporous materials. The proposed scientific undertaking is novel and offers the potential for revolutionary breakthroughs in heterogeneous materials, which will open new pathways for solving the worlds most technically challenging chemical problems.

[loc] Hill Conference [/loc]