•Hierarchical SAPO-11 molecular sieves are prepared in the presence of glucose.•Intercrystaline meso-structures are confirmed by SEM and TEM.•Carbon nanoshell and nanoparticles are responsible for the mesopores formation.Glucose was used as a mesoporous structure directing agent to synthesize hierarchical porous silicoaluminophosphate molecular sieves with AEL topology (SAPO-11). Nanosized SAPO-11 with numerous mesopores were confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and N2 adsorption–desorption analysis. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transimission electron microscopy (TEM) are employed to reveal that inter-crystallinic meso-structures were formed from the aggregation of nanosized crystallites. A proposed mesopore construction mechanism by the addition of glucose is presented based on Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and CHNS analysis.

•A graphitic-like porous N-doped carbon material is fabricated from low cost and wide available urea formaldehyde resin.•CO2 adsorption capacity of as-synthesized material is tested, which high capacity of 3.21 mmol g−1 at 25 °C is obtained.•Various characterizations reveal that both the pore size and basic N species played a crucial role in CO2 capture capacity.N-doped carbon material constitutes abundant of micropores and basic nitrogen species that have potential implementation for CO2 capture. In this paper, porous carbon material with high nitrogen content was simply fabricated by carbonizing low cost and widely available urea formaldehyde resin, and then followed by KOH activation. CO2 capture experiment showed high adsorption capacity of 3.21 mmol g−1 at 25 °C under 1 atm for UFCA-2-600. XRD, SEM, XPS and FT-IR analysis confirmed that a graphitic-like structure was retained even after high temperature carbonization and strong base activation. Textural property analysis revealed that narrow micropores, especially below 0.8 nm, were effective for CO2 adsorption by physical adsorption mechanism. Chemical evolved investigation revealed that graphitic-like embedded basic nitrogen groups are generated from bridged and terminal amines of urea formaldehyde resin from thermal carbonization and KOH activation treatment, which is responsible for the enrichment of CO2 capacity by chemical adsorption mechanism. The relationship between CO2 adsorption capacity and pore size or basic N species was also studied, which turned out that both of them played crucial role by physical and chemical adsorption mechanism, respectively.Graphical abstract

•An N-doped microporous carbon is synthesized from urea furfural resin.•Carbon material obtained exhibits high content of narrow well-defined micropores and large amount of heterocyclic basic nitrogen.•High CO2 adsorption capacity is achieved.N-doped microporous carbon material was successfully synthesized by a carbonization-activation process using low cost and widely available urea and furfural as precursors. Microstructure property was evaluated by N2 adsorption–desorption isotherm and TEM, while chemical property was determined by FTIR, XPS and CHN element analysis. Characterization results revealed that carbon material exhibited high content of narrow well-defined micropores and large amount of heterocyclic basic nitrogen. CO2 adsorption performance of N-doped microporous carbon was investigated.

With the quality of crude oil becoming worse, the efficient Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) conversion of heavy oil is of great challenge. The enhancement of isomerization during catalytic cracking process is a feasible approach to improve the gasoline yield and quality. In this study, meso-SAPO-11 was synthesized by citric acid modification to generate mesopores in the SAPO-11 molecular sieve. The modification temperature played an important role in the mesopore generation. Nitrogen sorption and X-ray diffraction analysis had been utilized to characterize the mesoporous structure. Meso-SAPO-11 was further used as an additive in the FCC catalyst for catalytic evaluation with atmospheric gas oil and coking gas oil. The additive showed significant improvement of heavy oil conversion, especially for the gasoline yield and quality .

A series of SAPO-11 molecular sieves with hierarchical structure (Meso-SAPO-11) were synthesized by adding certain amount of carbon particles. The co-existing micropore and mesopore feature of Meso-SAPO-11 was confirmed by N2 adsorption–desorption isotherm, TEM and SEM. XRD, TEM, SEM and Py-FTIR were employed to examine the crystallization, morphology and acidity properties of the resulting meso-SAPO-11 prepared from two typical kinds of carbon material and different contents of template. The hydroisomerization performance of meso-SAPO-11 as catalyst support and acid active site, with loading 0.5 wt% Pt as metal active site, was also tested to evaluate the mesoporous effects on catalytic activity and product selectivity.

The isomerization conversion of long chain paraffins for high quality lube oil production plays an important role in the petrochemical industry. The conventional isomerization catalyst, SAPO-11 molecular sieve, exhibits disadvantages for large molecule transfer and multi-branched isomer conversion. To overcome the difficulty of long chain paraffin isomerization, SAPO-11 with hierarchical structure was synthesized by acid modification. With comparison of citric acid modification and hydrochloride acid modification, the hierarchical SAPO-11 was obtained and characterized by nitrogen sorption, XRD, SEM, TEM, and Py-FTIR. The catalytic isomerization activity of prepared hierarchical SAPO-11 was evaluated by n-dodecane isomerization reaction, and the results showed that it had high isomerization conversion and multi-branched isomer selectivity.