title: Pore size dependent molecular adsorption of cationic dye in biomass derived hierarchically porous carbon.
abstract: Hierarchically porous carbon adsorbents were successfully fabricated from different biomass resources (softwood, hardwood, bamboo and cotton) by a facile two-step process, i.e. carbonization in nitrogen and thermal oxidation in air. Without involving any toxic/corrosive chemicals, large surface area of up to 890 m2/g was achieved, which is comparable to commercial activated carbon. The porous carbons with various surface area and pore size were used as adsorbents to investigate the pore size dependent adsorption phenomenon. Based on the density functional theory, effective (E-SSA) and ineffective surface area (InE-SSA) was calculated considering the geometry of used probing adsorbate. It was demonstrated that the adsorption capacity strongly depends on E-SSA instead of total surface area. Moreover, a regression model was developed to quantify the adsorption capacities contributed from E-SSA and InE-SSA, respectively. The applicability of this model has been verified by satisfactory prediction results on porous carbons prepared in this work as well as commercial activated carbon. Revealing the pore size dependent adsorption behavior in these biomass derived porous carbon adsorbents will help to design more effective materials (either from biomass or other carbon resources) targeting to specific adsorption applications.
authors.affiliation: Intelligent Composites Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA.
authors.forename: Long
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Intelligent Composites Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA.
authors.forename: Tuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.affiliation: Intelligent Composites Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA; Division of Machine Elements, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, 97187, Sweden.
authors.forename: Liwen
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mu
authors.affiliation: Division of Machine Elements, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, 97187, Sweden.
authors.forename: Yijun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Northeast Petroleum University, Daqing, 163318, PR China.
authors.forename: Huaiyuan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Intelligent Composites Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA. Electronic address: jzhu1@uakron.edu.
authors.forename: Jiahua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D018533:Biomass; D002244:Carbon; D004464:Econazole / Q000031:analogs & derivatives; D016062:Porosity
chemical_list: C070439:econazole sulfosalicylate; D004464:Econazole; D002244:Carbon
keywords: Adsorption model; Biomass; Effective surface area; Methylene blue; Porous carbon