Abstract
Porous inorganic materials are of great interest owing to their potential in energy applications. The general objective of the present thesis concerns the development of functional (carbo)nitrides for hydrogen generation and storage (material design, elaboration, properties and applications). The PDCs route, which offers a large number of opportunities in chemistry and ceramic sciences, has been applied to produce functional (carbo)nitrides materials. Firstly, we prepared porous binary systems such as AlN and BN by replicating the structure of CMK-3 and that of activated carbon. After pyrolysis and removal of the template, we demonstrated the feasibility of producing nitrides with tailored porosity. Moreover, by coupling the PDCs route with the aerogel technology, we succeeded in preparing polymer-derived AlN and BN aerogels. We assessed the potential of these porous AlN and BN materials in nanoconfinement of two chemical hydrides, namely sodium alanate and ammoniaborane, respectively. In both cases, the nanoconfinement destabilized the network of the hydride and favored the release of H2 at low temperature. Besides, in the case of nanoconfined ammoniaborane, no evolution of undesired gaseous by-products was observed, which means that pure hydrogen was produced in our conditions. Secondly, we prepared porous quaternary systems through the association of AlN/BN with Si-based ceramics. In particular, we investigated the preparation of SiAlCN with tailored porosity by using two approaches: the “molecular building block” and “single-source precursor” approaches. Concerning the former, we investigated the preparation of ordered mesoporous materials to be used as catalytic supports for hydrolysis of alkaline solution of sodium borohydride. We succeeded in generating high amounts of H2 with attractive kinetics. Concerning the latter approach, the work was focused on the investigation of the chemistry of SiAlCN and SiBCN materials with a particular focus on the elaboration of SiAlCN microcellular foams by a sacrificial processing route.