Preparation of well-developed mesoporous activated carbon fibers from plant pulp fibers and its adsorption of methylene blue from solution

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cplett.2021.138535
• Publication Date: 2021-03-22T22:22:03Z
• Authors: B. Liu; C. Du; J.J. Chen; J.Y. Zhai; Y. Wang; H.L. Li
• Keywords: 02 engineering and technology; 0210 nano-technology; 01 natural sciences; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

Abstract Well-developed mesoporous plant-based activated carbon fibers (ACFs) with paper structure were prepared from plant pulp fibers (cotton, sisal hemp, manila hemp, softwood and bleached softwood) using phosphoric acid activation at 450 °C. The structure and performance of ACFs were studied. Results show that ACFs exhibit high mesoporous rate of 72.8%-82.7%, large specific surface area of 1688–1825 m2/g and average pore size of 2.53–3.31 nm. ACFs show relatively high methylene blue (MB) adsorption capacity with 367.5–490.9 mg/g. SHP-ACFs have the largest MB adsorption capacity, the adsorption equilibrium data follows the Langmuir model and the kinetic data could be described by the pseudo-second-order model.