Catalysis co-calcination: An available and energy-saving approach to prepare metal/carbon materials with well hydrophobicity and photo-thermal conversion performance

Abstract

Benefitting from its lightweight, low cost and considerable liquid holding capability, bio-based 3D carbon materials with considerable hydrophobicity have stood out as effective oil-water separators to address oily water problems. However, in order to obtain ideal hydrophobicity, recent approaches such as the thermal-induced sp2-hybridization and nano-texturing construction are energy-consuming and complicated, limiting the large-scale production. Here, through the catalysis co-calcination of transition metals salts (TMSs) and biomass precursor, agriculture solid waste-sugarcane residues were successfully converted to hydrophobic photo-thermal metal/carbon materials (CMs) with lower calcination temperature. Comparing with normal carbonization method, catalysis co-calcination can achieve higher carbonization degree and larger yield with lower consumption energy. The as-prepared Cu-CMs can adsorb 18.49 g/g, 31.33 g/g, 24.45 g/g, 38.25 g/g, and 41.98 g/g of DMF, toluene, methanol, chloroform and carbon tetrachloride, respectively, showing excellent adsorption capability towards organic solvents. Moreover, owing to the synergistic photothermal effect of carbon skeleton and metal remains, the metal/carbon materials can heat the oil efficiently and show better adsorption performance for high-viscous oil. The catalysis co-calcination method is demonstrated as a promising method to produce CMs with unique properties and the metal/carbon materials is also supposed to be an effective wastewater treat materials.