Insights on Organically Synthesised Porous Carbon

Rowling, Adam and Trewin, Abbie and Doulcet, Julien and Tapia Ruiz, Nuria (2025) Insights on Organically Synthesised Porous Carbon. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

This thesis covers the synthesis of a family of organically synthesised porous carbon materials or OSPCs. These materials are then analysed through a variety of techniques to confirm and rationalise their structure. Finally, select materials are evaluated for their potential applications in electrochemical cells. Firstly, OSPC materials are set within the context of porous materials in general, and porous polymers specifically. Considerations of structure, stability, and surface area are introduced and discussed. OSPCs are introduced as both a novel allotrope of carbon, and a close relative of conjugated microporous polymers. The initial reports of OSPC-1 and similar materials based on other group 6 elements are discussed alongside computational work on other OSPC materials. This culminates in the idea of adapting a published but minimally understood synthetic method to the purpose of making OSPC materials. This method is then used to make OSPC-1 in a single step from commercially available precursors. A comparison to the previously published synthesis is made, and the new route is found to be a significant improvement. This method is then generalised to make a diverse range of other OSPC materials and scaled to yield batches at over 100x the original size. The materials produced are then analysed through multiple techniques to overcome the established difficulties with understanding the structure of amorphous materials. OSPC-1 made through the single step method is found to be structurally equivalent to reports of OSPC made through the multi-step method. The solid-state NMR of OSPC materials had previously been a point of contention, and this work supports a proposed structure that rationalises it. Finally, OSPC materials are tested for their performance in metal-ion battery applications and compared to state-of-the-art energy materials, where they are found to represent a significant advancement in performance