Tailoring mesoporosity of poly(furfuryl alcohol)-based activated carbons and their ability to adsorb organic compounds from water

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management, Apr 2018

In this work it was shown that polymers can be recycled into a promising adsorbent for organic dyes and phenols waste removal. For this, a series of activated carbons (ACs) were produced from mixture of ferrocene or titanium acetylacetonate with poly(furfuryl alcohol) (PFA) by steam activation. The introduction of ferrocene as Fe precursor was found to be an efficient catalyst in mesoporosity development during carbonization and subsequent steam activation at 850 °C, whereas the polymer based only and titanium-doped ACs are typically microporous. The porous structure parameters were determined from nitrogen adsorption isotherms measured at 77 K. Scanning electron microscopy was applied to monitor the metal distribution of metal-loaded char and the surface morphology of activated carbons. The adsorption capacity was found to be dependent mainly on pore size distribution. In the case of phenol adsorption, the adsorption was defined by volume of pore with size 0.8–1.4 nm; whereas, for Congo red best fit was observed for volume of pore with size 2–5 nm.

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Tailoring mesoporosity of poly(furfuryl alcohol)-based activated carbons and their ability to adsorb organic compounds from water

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management https://doi.org/10.1007/s10163 Tailoring mesoporosity of poly(furfuryl alcohol)-based activated carbons and their ability to adsorb organic compounds from water Ewa Lorenc‑Grabowska 0 Piotr Rutkowski 0 0 Department of Polymer and Carbonaceous Materials, Faculty of Chemistry, Wrocław University of Science and Technology , Gdańska 7/9, 50-344 Wrocław , Poland 1 Ewa Lorenc-Grabowska In this work it was shown that polymers can be recycled into a promising adsorbent for organic dyes and phenols waste removal. For this, a series of activated carbons (ACs) were produced from mixture of ferrocene or titanium acetylacetonate with poly(furfuryl alcohol) (PFA) by steam activation. The introduction of ferrocene as Fe precursor was found to be an efficient catalyst in mesoporosity development during carbonization and subsequent steam activation at 850 °C, whereas the polymer based only and titanium-doped ACs are typically microporous. The porous structure parameters were determined from nitrogen adsorption isotherms measured at 77 K. Scanning electron microscopy was applied to monitor the metal distribution of metal-loaded char and the surface morphology of activated carbons. The adsorption capacity was found to be dependent mainly on pore size distribution. In the case of phenol adsorption, the adsorption was defined by volume of pore with size 0.8-1.4 nm; whereas, for Congo red best fit was observed for volume of pore with size 2-5 nm. Poly(furfuryl alcohol); Gasification; Metal catalyst; Phenol; Congo red Introduction The constant development of civilization leads to expansion of problems related to municipal solid waste management. The problems deal not only with collection, transport, processing or storage, but also with the disposal of waste and secondary pollution of landfill. An interesting concept of reducing the waste is the production of activated carbons (ACs) from solid waste. It allows to utilize the waste and the obtained adsorbent can be used for further environment protection. The solid organics with relatively high content of organic matter including plastic bottles, agricultural or food waste like straw, rice hull, seeds or fruits shells are some examples of raw waste materials that can be used to produce activated carbons [ 1–3 ]. The ACs can be produced by both physical and chemical activation. The physical activation of waste biomass or polymers usually gives activated carbon with well-developed microporosity and surface are in range of 400–1100 m2 g−1 [ 1, 2 ]. The chemical activation results in visibly larger surface area usually higher than 1500 m2 g−1 [ 1, 2 ]. Activated carbons (ACs) with specific porous texture have been of subject of broad interest for many years. There are many application areas, among them dyes, vitamins, polymer and bio-molecules adsorption as well as catalyst preparation, which require well-developed mesoporosity of carbon material [ 4 ]. Activated carbons considered as catalyst carrier, material for hydrogen or methane storage or electrode material for electric double-layer capacitors or supercapacitors should also be characterized by high contribution of mesopores [ 5–7 ]. The mesoporous ACs might be prepared in several ways, i.e., by carbonization and activation of proper carbonaceous precursor or the sol–gel process and the template method [ 8–11 ]. Another efficient way for mesoporosity development is the catalytic gasification [ 9–18 ]. The different metals and different forms of the same metal have different catalytic effects on the gasification of carbonaceous materials. Generally it is assumed that metal particles gasify carbon in their immediate vicinity and create the porosity by forming holes in the carbon matrix. Transition metal and alkali earth metals have been recognized as good catalysts for the gasification of carbon materials to produce activated carbons with developed meso- and macroporosity [ 9–11 ]. Activated carbon with a remarkable contribution of mesopores by steam activation of different rank coals containing small amounts of metal (Y, Al, Ti, Zr) acetylacetonate has been known [ 12 ]. Similarly calcium or iron have been recognized as effective catalysts for carbon gasification, promoting the mesopore formation [ 14 ]. Iron is one of the metals commonly used in mesopore formation [ 14–18 ]. A different form of Fe has been used to produce the ACs with developed mesoporosity. The ferrocene was found to be very efficient in mesoporosity development in pitch [ 16, 18 ]. Ferrocene was also used to introduce iron into the PFA but no details about the porosity development were given [19]. What is more, iron on activated carbons can be also used as catalyst in catalytic degradation of polypropylene [ 20 ]. In recent years there has been a strong emphasis on the production of ACs from waste products, including waste polymers and agricultural by-products. Poly(furfuryl alco (...truncated)


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Ewa Lorenc-Grabowska, Piotr Rutkowski. Tailoring mesoporosity of poly(furfuryl alcohol)-based activated carbons and their ability to adsorb organic compounds from water, Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management, 2018, pp. 1-10, DOI: 10.1007/s10163-018-0733-6