KOH catalysed preparation of activated carbon aerogels for dye adsorption

Sie King Ling; H Y Tian; Shaobin Wang; Thomas Rufford; Z H Zhu; C E Buckley

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2011.01.092

KOH catalysed preparation of activated carbon aerogels for dye adsorption

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2011 May 1;357(1):157-62. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2011.01.092. Epub 2011 Feb 3.

Authors

Sie King Ling¹, H Y Tian, Shaobin Wang, Thomas Rufford, Z H Zhu, C E Buckley

Affiliation

¹ Centre for Process Systems Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA 6845, Australia.

PMID: 21345448
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2011.01.092

Abstract

Organic carbon aerogels (CAs) were prepared by a sol-gel method from polymerisation of resorcinol, furfural, and hexamethylenetetramine catalysed by KOH at around pH 9 using ambient pressure drying. The effect of KOH in the sol-gel on CA synthesis was studied. It was found that addition of KOH prior to the sol-gel polymerisation process improved thermal stability of the gel, prevented the crystallinity of the gel to graphite, increased the microporosity of CA and promoted activation of CA. The CAs prepared using the KOH catalyst exhibited higher porosity than uncatalysed prepared samples. Activation in CO(2) at higher temperature also enhanced the porosity of CAs. Adsorption tests indicated that the CAs were effective for both basic and acid dye adsorption and the adsorption increased with increasing surface area and pore volume. The kinetic adsorption of dyes was diffusion control and could be described by the second-order kinetic model. The equilibrium adsorption of dyes was higher than activated carbon.