Ting Wang, Zhongliang Yu, Tarmizi Taher, Song Yang, Na Li, Zeyu Liu, Yanyan Yang
Carbon materials (CM) have excellent adsorption properties and are broadly applied for the removal of organic contaminants from wastewater. However, the adsorption properties of CM are significantly affected by the low specific surface area and the formation of hydrogen bonds between hydrophilic groups and water molecules. In this work, one-step synthesis method with K2CO3 as the pore-forming agent and remover of hydrophilic functional groups is presented for the fabrication of porous hydrophobic CM. With K2CO3 addition during synthesis, the specific surface area of CM intensely increased from 0.27 m2/g to 1846.58 m2/g, and the surface of CM turned from hydrophilic to hydrophobic as the water contact angle increased from 63.8 ±0.4 o to 125.9 ±0.5 o. Importantly, the porous hydrophobic CM can not only provide more micropores for organic pollutants adsorption, but also limit competitive adsorption of water molecules by removing the hydrophilic functional groups. As expected, the obtained CM with K2CO3 exhibited enhanced adsorption capacity of several organic pollutants, i.e. Rhodamine B (42.74 mg/g), 2,6-dichlorophenol (41.61 mg/g), and methyl orange (30.88 mg/g). This work demonstrates that one-step synthesis with K2CO3 could provide an effective method for preparing porous hydrophobic CM, which holds a significant potential for practical use in wastewater purification. © 2025 Elsevier B.V.
College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China; School of Chemistry and Environmental Science, Shangrao Normal University, Shangrao, 334001, China; Engineering Center of Civil Clean Fuel, Taiyuan, 030024, China; Department of Environmental Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sumatera, Terusan Ryacudu, Way Hui, Lampung Selatan, Jati Agung, 35365, Indonesia; Center for Green and Sustainable Materials, Institut Teknologi Sumatera, Terusan Ryacudu, Way Hui, Lampung Selatan, Jati Agung, 35365, Indonesia