One-step syntheses and properties of carbon microspheres with amino groups

Abstract

This paper proposes a method that can be used to synthesize carbon microspheres with controllable sizes, rich amino groups and oxygen-containing groups. The synthesized materials are portrayed by various methods including SEM, FT-IR, XRD, and EDX. The resulting carbon spheres presented an amorphous characteristic, which displayed a broad range in diameter, high degree of sphericity, and smoothness with amino groups and oxygen-containing groups. Pyknotic and smooth silver shells were deposited on carbon spheres by electroless silver plating. Moreover, it could directly reduce Ag+ to Ag in aqueous silver nitrate. These materials can potentially be used as adsorbents for heavy-metal removal from aqueous solutions.