Advanced nanonetwork-structured carbon materials for high-performance formaldehyde capture

Abstract

Facile design and construction of advanced materials for eliminating the indoor formaldehyde pollution is still a great challenge but very desirable to provide clean air for human life. Herein, we report a high-performance formaldehyde adsorbent, i.e., a new type of nanonetwork-structured carbon (NNSC) with a hollow nanosphere as network unit by developing a facile, efficient and post-treatment-free strategy. The NNSCs can be easily obtained by a simple carbonization of a mixture, in which natural wheat husk and Teflon are used as carbon precursor and biotemplate-in-situ-remover, respectively. The as-constructed NNSC exhibits a unique three-dimensional interconnected micro-, meso- and macroporous nanonetwork. Benefiting from such a valuable hollow nanosphere-interconnected network structure, the NNSCs show surprising formaldehyde gas adsorption properties including super-high storage capacity, ultrafast adsorption rate and efficient adsorptively active surface. Remarkably, their specific adsorption capacity and maximum adsorption rate are as high as 120.3 mg g−1 m−3 and 44.6 mg g−1 m−3 h−1, which make 18-fold and 41-fold enhancement when compared to activated carbon commercially used for formaldehyde adsorption, respectively. This work highlights an efficient solution to develop high-performance formaldehyde adsorbents by facile and rational construction of novel porous structure, simultaneously to provide a new avenue to high-value advanced materials for challenging environmental issue.