Sustainable nitrogen-doped carbonaceous materials from biomass derivatives

Nitrogen-doped carbons were produced using hydrothermal carbonization of nitrogen-containing carbohydrates under mild temperature (180 °C). The resulting materials contain significant amounts of nitrogen and display a high degree of aromatization. The nitrogen contents are also retained after further calcination at higher temperatures. All the resulting materials have been thoroughly characterized using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, solid state 15N and 13C-nuclear magnetic resonance, elemental chemical analysis, nitrogen adsorption, scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The nitrogen-doped materials proved to have superior performance with respect to their nitrogen-free counterparts in terms of electrical conductivity.