Facile and sustainable synthesis of nitrogen-doped polymer and carbon porous spheres

International audienceThe development of green, sustainable and simple synthesis pathways for the design of polymer and carbonaceous materials with well controlled features is of great importance for many fields of applications. Herein, we report a green synthesis method for polymer and carbon particles with well-defined shape and size. This approach involves the use of green precursors, water as solvent, no templates 10 under ambient temperature and pressure conditions, simultaneously. Green polymer resins (phloroglucinol-glyoxylic acid) and a catalyst/nitrogen source (triethylenediamine) are dissolved in water at room temperature resulting in polymer particles which by subsequent thermal treatment transforms in carbon particles. Mainly spherical carbon particles with controlled size from 500 nm to 10 µm were obtained by simply adjusting the experimental conditions, i.e., the synthesis time and the molar ratio between the precursors or solvent. In some conditions, flower-like morphology was obtained as well. The synthesis mechanism from polymer resin spheres 15 formation to their conversion into carbon sphere was determined by several techniques, i.e., 13 C NMR spectroscopy, SEM, XPS and TPD-MS (temperature programmed desorption coupled by mass spectrometer). 2