Enhance pore structure of cyanobacteria-based porous carbon by polypropylene to improve adsorption capacity of methylene blue

Abstract

Porous carbon obtained by co-pyrolysis of plastic and biomass has received a lot of attention due to its excellent adsorption properties, and the pore structure plays an essential role in adsorption performance, however, the pore structure is still not well understood. Herein, we synthesized cyanobacteria-based porous carbon derived from cyanobacteria and polypropylene plastic by one-step method. CPC-800–30% exhibited a high BET surface area (2140 m2/g), pore volume up to 1.44 cm3/g. PP not only improved the pore structure of porous carbon, but also enriched the types of functional groups, such as O–H, N–H, C=O, and –CH, due to dehydroxylation or amino group decreased, resulting in the hydrogen radicals increased, hence PP had positive effect for biomass during co-pyrolysis. Meanwhile, CPC-800–30% showed excellent methylene blue (MB) adsorption capacity (667 mg/g). This work provided a new strategy for enhancing porous carbon structure via using PP as additive.