A three-in-one strategy for facile fabrication of hierarchically porous n-doped carbons: enhanced CO₂ capture and tetracycline removal

The formation of high-quality hierarchically porous N-doped carbons with multi-scale pores, high specific surface area and large pore volume generally suffers from multistep complicated procedures. It still remains a great challenge to develop facile and effective approaches. Here, a novel three-in-one strategy (synergistic self-templating, self-activation and in-situ N-doping) was designed to fabricate hierarchically porous N-doped carbons (HPNCs) directly, via a one-pot carbonization using ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid tripotassium salt dehydrate (EDTA-3K) as the sole starting material. The as-obtained HPNCs exhibited 3D porous architecture, very high BET surface areas (e.g., 2787 m² g⁻¹), rich porosity and good nitrogen doping amounts, resulting in good CO₂ capture capacity (e.g., 5.80 mmol g⁻¹, at 273 K and 1.0 bar), and tetracycline adsorption ability (e.g., 1092 mg g⁻¹). This discovery can provide a new concept for simply fabricating well-defined and unique functional porous carbons for various applications, such as sensor, energy storage and conversion, adsorption, separation, catalysis, bio-medicine, environmental protection.