@phdthesis{Fechler2012,
  author    = {Fechler, Nina},
  title     = {Salts as highly diverse porogens : functional ionic liquid-derived carbons and carbon-based composites for energy-related applications},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-64775},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  year      = {2012},
  abstract  = {The present thesis is to be brought into line with the current need for alternative and sustainable approaches toward energy management and materials design. In this context, carbon in particular has become the material of choice in many fields such as energy conversion and storage. Herein, three main topics are covered: 1)An alternative synthesis strategy toward highly porous functional carbons with tunable porosity using ordinary salts as porogen (denoted as "salt templating") 2)The one-pot synthesis of porous metal nitride containing functional carbon composites 3)The combination of both approaches, enabling the generation of highly porous composites with finely tunable properties All approaches have in common that they are based on the utilization of ionic liquids, salts which are liquid below 100 °C, as precursors. Just recently, ionic liquids were shown to be versatile precursors for the generation of heteroatom-doped carbons since the liquid state and a negligible vapor pressure are highly advantageous properties. However, in most cases the products do not possess any porosity which is essential for many applications. In the first part, "salt templating", the utilization of salts as diverse and sustainable porogens, is introduced. Exemplarily shown for ionic liquid derived nitrogen- and nitrogen-boron-co-doped carbons, the control of the porosity and morphology on the nanometer scale by salt templating is presented. The studies within this thesis were conducted with the ionic liquids 1-Butyl-3-methyl-pyridinium dicyanamide (Bmp-dca), 1-Ethyl-3-methyl-imidazolium dicyanamide (Emim-dca) and 1 Ethyl 3-methyl-imidazolium tetracyanoborate (Emim-tcb). The materials are generated through thermal treatment of precursor mixtures containing one of the ionic liquids and a porogen salt. By simple removal of the non-carbonizable template salt with water, functional graphitic carbons with pore sizes ranging from micro- to mesoporous and surface areas up to 2000 m2g-1 are obtained. The carbon morphologies, which presumably originate from different onsets of demixing, mainly depend on the nature of the porogen salt whereas the nature of the ionic liquid plays a minor role. Thus, a structural effect of the porogen salt rather than activation can be assumed. This offers an alternative to conventional activation and templating methods, enabling to avoid multiple-step and energy-consuming synthesis pathways as well as employment of hazardous chemicals for the template removal. The composition of the carbons can be altered via the heat-treatment procedure, thus at lower synthesis temperatures rather polymeric carbonaceous materials with a high degree of functional groups and high surface areas are accessible. First results suggest the suitability of the materials for CO2 utilization. In order to further illustrate the potential of ionic liquids as carbon precursors and to expand the class of carbons which can be obtained, the ionic liquid 1-Ethyl-3-methyl-imidazolium thiocyanate (Emim-scn) is introduced for the generation of nitrogen-sulfur-co-doped carbons in combination with the already studied ionic liquids Bmp-dca and Emim-dca. Here, the salt templating approach should also be applicable eventually further illustrating the potential of salt templating, too. In the second part, a one-pot and template-free synthesis approach toward inherently porous metal nitride nanoparticle containing nitrogen-doped carbon composites is presented. Since ionic liquids also offer outstanding solubility properties, the materials can be generated through the carbonization of homogeneous solutions of an ionic liquid acting as nitrogen as well as carbon source and the respective metal precursor. The metal content and surface area are easily tunable via the initial metal precursor amount. Furthermore, it is also possible to synthesize composites with ternary nitride nanoparticles whose composition is adjustable by the metal ratio in the precursor solution. Finally, both approaches are combined into salt templating of the one-pot composites. This opens the way to the one-step synthesis of composites with tunable composition, particle size as well as precisely controllable porosity and morphology. Thereby, common synthesis strategies where the product composition is often negatively affected by the template removal procedure can be avoided. The composites are further shown to be suitable as electrodes for supercapacitors. Here, different properties such as porosity, metal content and particle size are investigated and discussed with respect to their influence on the energy storage performance. Because a variety of ionic liquids, metal precursors and salts can be combined and a simple closed-loop process including salt recycling is imaginable, the approaches present a promising platform toward sustainable materials design.},
  language  = {en}
}