Abstract for presentation at Chemeca 2007

We prepared Molecular sieving carbons (MSCs) from phenol-formaldehyde (PF) resin synthesized with addition of K2CO3 , Na2CO3 and Ni(NO3)2. The effects of addition of the alkali metals on the pore structure (pore volume) and the laminated structure were investigated. The pore volume distributions of MSCs changed depending on the alkali metal species. We analyzed the laminated structure of these MSCs with X-ray diffraction. The addition of K2CO3 caused an increase in the number of laminated layer in the MSC where the pore size became small and the pore volume decreased. The addition of Ni(NO3)2 , on the other hand, decreased the number of laminated layer in the MSC where the pore size became large and the pore volume increased. The addition of Na2CO3 did not caused any change in the number of laminated layer in the MSC as compared with the MSC prerared without addition of alkali metals. The pore size of MSCs added with alkali metals became uniform. It may be deduced that the addition of alkali metals changed the crystallinity of the MSCs prepared and thus changed their. We further carried out a gas separation experiment for the CO2 -CH4 system using these MSCs; the MSCs prepared with addition in Na2CO3 and Ni(NO3)2 well separated CO2 and CH4 from their mixture in a high efficiency.