One-step synthesis of silicon carbide foams supported hierarchical porous sludge-derived activated carbon as efficient odor gas adsorbent

摘要

Graphical abstractDisplay OmittedHighlights•Sludge derived hierarchical porous activated carbon have been fabricated to adsorb odorous CH3SH.•Sludge-derived activated carbon was confirmed to be hierarchical macro/meso/microporous structure.•Adsorption capacity of SCZnH-SiC for CH3SH can even reach 259.94mgg−1with breakthrough time of 90min.•Hierarchical porous SCZnH-SiC is synthesized by jointly using hexadecanol micelles and ZnCl2as pore forming agents.AbstractHierarchical porous sludge-derived activated carbon coated on macroporous silicon carbide (SiC) foams substrate has been facilely fabricatedviaa simple one-step strategy by utilizing sludge as carbon source, and jointly using zinc chloride and hexadecanol as pore forming agents. The sludge-derived carbon has been confirmed to be hierarchical macro-meso-microporous structure based on detailed characterization by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectra and nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurement. The adsorption tests showed that the hierarchical porous sludge-derived activated carbon fabricated by one-step pore-forming (zinc chloride and hexadecanol microemulsion mixture) possesses excellent adsorption capacity (259.9mgg−1, breakthrough time reach 90min and saturation end-time up to 140min) of methyl mercaptan (CH3SH). The excellent adsorption performance can be attributed to the macroporous SiC foam skeleton and the mesopores channel formed by nonionic surfactant hexadecanol micelles, as well as the micropores activated by ZnCl2as odor capture sites. The proposed pore-forming strategy paves an avenue for the sludge disposal and even the development of bio-derived materials.