Preparation of sponge-cake-like N-doped porous carbon materials derived from silk fibroin by chemical activation

N-doped porous carbon materials have attracted great interest due to its large specific area, high chemical stability as well as good conductivity. These properties manifest its potential application in gas adsorption, electrocatalysts etc. Normally, chemical N-precursors such as melamine and benzylamine are pyrolyzed to obtain N-doped carbonaceous materials, which is costly and may cause environmental concerns. Silk fibroin, a natural protein derived from silk fibers, is one of the N-rich biomass of abundant resources which can be directly carbonized into N-doped carbon materials. Besides, chemical activation is one of the common ways to get porous structure. Herein, we present a facile approach to synthesize N-doped porous carbon materials from silk fibroin by chemical activation of KCl. The as-prepared samples exhibit layer structure and morphology like sponge cakes.