Facile synthesis of porous Fe7Co3/carbon nanocomposites and their applications as magnetically separable adsorber and catalyst support.
A facile co-gelation route has been developed to synthesize novel porous Fe(7)Co(3)/carbon composites with Fe(7)Co(3) nanoparticles embedded in the porous carbon matrix. The sol-gel process of this route simultaneously involves the hydrolysis of tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) and the polymerization of furfuryl alcohol (FA) within an ethanol solution containing TEOS, FA, and metal nitrates, which led to the inorganic/organic hybrid xerogel, accompanying metal salts spontaneously captured in the xerogel, mostly in the framework of poly(furfuryl alcohol) (PFA). Compared to the nanocasting route, the advantage of this method is that the formation of silica template and the impregnation of carbon precursor and metal salts were simultaneously carried out in one co-gelation process, which makes the synthesis very simple and eliminates the time-consuming synthesis of the silica template and multistep impregnation process. Different amounts of Fe(7)Co(3) can be introduced into the composites, which led to different pore structures and magnetic properties. The composites have large surface areas (as high as 651.4 m(2)/g) and high saturation magnetizations (as high as 31.2 emu/g). The Fe(7)Co(3)/carbon composites prepared were successfully applied to the removal of dyes from water and catalysis of hydrogenation as efficient magnetically separable adsober and catalyst support. The facile co-gelation route makes the scalable synthesis of magnetic porous carbon possible for application, and it also provides a promising path to the synthesis of nanoscale metal or alloy embedded in the porous carbon materials.
Wang
Zhongli
Z
State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, PR China.
Liu
Ruixia
R
Zhao
Fengyu
F
Liu
Xiaojuan
X
Lv
Minfeng
M
Meng
Jian
J
D002384:Catalysis; D003035:Cobalt; D007501:Iron; D008280:Magnetics; D053761:Nanocomposites / Q000737:chemistry*; D016062:Porosity
D003035:Cobalt; D007501:Iron