Preparation and post-treatments of ordered mesoporous carbons (OMC) for resorcinol removal

In this investigation, acrylic acid was used as a carbon precursor and SBA-15 as a mesoporous template to synthesize the ordered mesoporous carbons (OMC). Different ratios of SBA-15 to acrylic acid were evaluated to improve the OMCs adsorption capacity. It was found that the optimal ratio of SBA-15 to acrylic acid is 3:1. In the post-treatment study, four methods (NaOH, urea, NH3H2O, and AlCl3) were explored to investigate their influences on resorcinol removal. Results showed the ammonium hydroxide-treated OMC had the highest adsorption capacity of 40.6 mg/g for resorcinol removal. The nano-structures of the OMC and post-treated OMCs were characterized and confirmed. FTIR analysis indicated that the surface functional groups were changed after post-treatments. XRD patterns and TEM images suggested that the ordered structure was well maintained during the post-treatment processes, although the erosion effect was observed.