Nitrogen- and Sulfur-Codoped Hierarchically Porous Carbon for Adsorptive and Oxidative Removal of Pharmaceutical Contaminants

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces Vol. 8; no. 11; pp. 7184 - 7193
• Main Authors: Tian, Wenjie, Zhang, Huayang, Duan, Xiaoguang, Sun, Hongqi, Tade, Moses O, Ang, Ha Ming, Wang, Shaobin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 23-03-2016
• Subjects: Carbon - chemistry; Nitrogen - chemistry; Oxidation-Reduction; Porosity; Sulfanilamides - chemistry; Sulfur - chemistry; porous carbon; sulfur and nitrogen codoping; adsorption; persulfate; antibiotics
• ISSN: 1944-8244; 1944-8252
• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b01748

Heteroatom (nitrogen and sulfur)-codoped porous carbons (N-S-PCs) with high surface areas and hierarchically porous structures were successfully synthesized via direct pyrolysis of a mixture of glucose, sodium bicarbonate, and thiourea. The resulting N-S-PCs exhibit excellent adsorption abilities and are highly efficient for potassium persulfate activation when employed as catalysts for the oxidative degradation of sulfachloropyridazine (SCP) solutions. The adsorption capacities of N-S-PC-2 (which contains 4.51 atom % nitrogen and 0.22 atom % sulfur and exhibits S BET of 1608 m2 g–1) are 73, 7, and 3 times higher than those of graphene oxide, reduced graphene oxide, and commercial single-walled carbon nanotube, respectively. For oxidation, the reaction rate constant of N-S-PC-2 is 0.28 min–1. This approach not only contributes to the large-scale production and application of high-quality catalysts in water remediation but also provides an innovative strategy for the production of heteroatom-doped PCs for energy applications.