Polymer-based porous carbon doped with iron nanoparticles for enhanced organic compounds removal

Abstract

This work shows that magnetic adsorbents with different porosity characteristics can be produced by carbonization and steam activation of a mixture of a furfuryl alcohol and iron-containing compound, such as ferrocene (PFA/ferrocene), FeCl3 (PFA/FeCl3) and FeSO4 (PFA/FeSO4). The materials obtained in this work possess magnetic properties that are revealed in the neodymium magnet balance test as an increase in weight loss with an increase in iron content in the material. In order to verify whether the magnetic properties facilitate the removal of the used adsorbent, the sedimentation test was carried out. The porous texture characteristics obtained from the N2 adsorption isotherms at 77 K show a huge differences in porosities depending on the type of iron compound used. The presence of ferrocene promotes the formation of mesoporosity, whereas the presence of iron(II) sulphate induces microporosity. XRD measurements reveal the presence of magnetite and hematite in all magnetic adsorbents. The intensity of the XRD peak designated to magnetite increases with an increase in the saturation magnetization. Adsorption of Congo red (CR), phenol (P), atrazine (A) and isoproturon (I) from aqueous solutions was carried out at a temperature of 24 °C in a static system. The magnetic properties accelerated the sedimentation processes and materials demonstrated a high adsorption ability toward organic contamination. The adsorption capacity on PFA-based MAC is strongly related to adsorbent porosity.