Tunable Specific Surface Area Research Articles

Porous BINAP-based polyaromatic polymers for the continuous base-free Ru-catalysed decomposition of aqueous formic acid

In this work, a Suzuki cross-coupling procedure towards highly porous BINAP-based polymeric Ru-catalyst materials with tunable specific surface areas (SSAs) were synthesized and their stability towards reducing conditions was investigated. After the removal of Pd impurities by an oxidative treatment with H2O2/HCl, P=O reduction and metal loading, the resulting catalysts were employed for the base-free ruthenium-catalyzed decomposition of aqueous formic acid to CO2 and H2 with TOFs of up to 134000 h−1 and TONs up to 920000.

Carbon-based synergistic catalysis with transition metal dichalcogenides for electrocatalytic oxygen evolution/reduction

Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are considered as two of the most critical processes in various renewable energy systems, including multi-electron transfer reactions. However, the kinetics of ORR/OER are usually sluggish, significantly impeding their related applications. This review article summarizes the research advancements in electrocatalytic ORR/OER achieved using traditional noble metals, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), and carbon-based materials. Exploring diverse engineering strategies, such as defect engineering, strain engineering, and alloying, takes full advantage of the inherent energy band tunability of TMDCs and the advantages of carbon materials, including tunable specific surface area, high conductivity, and good stability. These strategies aim to regulate the intrinsic activity of materials and boost the apparent activity of the electrocatalytic ORR/OER. Finally, the challenges and prospects along this research line are proposed.

Bidirectional pore-creating strategy towards lignin-based heteroatom-doped porous carbon for supercapacitors

Significant pursuits have been committed to manufacturing high-performance lignin carbon-based supercapacitor electrode materials due to their high carbon content, abundant raw resources, and environmentally-friendly. However, the pessimistic accessible porous structure and appetency to the electrolyte of electrode materials are two vital factors for restricting its performance. Here, a bidirectional pore-creating strategy is proposed to construct heteroatom-doped lignin-based porous carbon (HLPC) materials with a high electrochemical active area at supramolecular-level. In this process, activated-mediates with different pore-forming functions are assembled into lignin-based supramolecules by electrostatic forcing, and then hierarchical pore-creation and heteroatom doping are accomplished simultaneously in the pyrolysis process. The obtained carbon materials possess a tunable specific surface area of 543.4–1502.3 m2 g−1 and high heteroatom content of 9.4–16.2 at.%. Benefit from its admirable physicochemical properties, the HPLCs deliver a high ions appetency, ultrahigh capacitance of 380.5 F g−1 at 0.2 A g−1, and extremely long cyclic stability (100% after 10,000 cycles), which is superior 2.5-fold than that of YP-80F at the same mass loading. More promising, symmetrical electrode devices based on HLPCs possess a preeminent energy density of 30.0 Wh kg−1 in aqueous electrolyte. Overall, this protocol provides a new avenue for promoting the advancement of electrode materials in industrial-scale supercapacitors and manufacturing high-value-added products from plentiful bio-waste.

Emulsion‐assisted interfacial polymerization strategy: Controllable architectural engineering of anisotropic and isotropic nanoparticles for high‐performance supercapacitors

AbstractAnisotropic nanoparticles have attracted extensive attention due to their potential applications in material transport, energy storage, and biopharmaceutical. However, due to the inadequate understanding of microscopic particle formation, controllable asymmetric growth is still a great challenge. Herein, we report a facile emulsion‐assisted interfacial polymerization strategy for the synthesis of nitrogen‐doped porous carbon particles (NPCPs) with tunable anisotropic/isotropic architectures. During the synthesis process, we can form emulsion droplets with different nanostructures directionally through dual routes, thereby assisting and mediating the polymerization and growth process of the monomer to obtain poly‐diaminopyridine nanoparticles with various architectures. The corresponding NPCPs with tunable specific surface area (125–362 m2 g−1), nitrogen content (10%–14%), and diverse morphologies can be acquired by calcination under N2 atmosphere at 700 °C. The synergetic effect of abundant microporous structures and active nitrogen species content contributes to improve the physicochemical properties, while the unique anisotropic architecture increases the charge diffusion efficiency and enhances the high‐rate stability. Therefore, the resultant NPCPs electrode exhibits a specific capacitance up to 275 F g−1 at 0.2 A g−1 and surface‐area‐normalized capacitance of 83.0 μF cm−2, indicating a promising material for high‐performance supercapacitors.

Interfacial Catalysis Enabled Acetone Sensors Based on Rationally Designed Mesoporous Metal Oxides with Erbium‐Doped WO3 Framework

AbstractThe emerging combination of Internet of Things requires the development of intelligent gas sensor, and semiconductor gas sensors based on metal oxides have been widely applied in industrial production, environmental monitoring, and food safety. Although versatile nanomaterials have been exploited as gas sensitive materials, restricted gas sensing performance including sensitivity, selectivity and stability, is still the fatal problem of practical applications. Herein, inspired by heteratomic doping engineering, unique rare earth erbium (Er)‐doped mesoporous tungsten oxide (Er/mWO3) has been synthesized via one‐step collaborative coassembly strategy, and Er ion‐doped mWO3 exhibited peculiarly hexagonal mesostructure (P63/mmc), tunable specific surface area (58.1–78.3 m2 g–1), uniform mesoporous size and highly crystallized framework with heteroatomic pore wall doping. The introduction of Er can significantly adjust the micro/nano structure and band characteristics, and 1.5 wt% Er‐doped mWO3 displays superior acetone sensing performance, including high response values (107 for 50 ppm), rapid response–recovery dynamics (9/56 s), prominent acetone selectivity, low concentration detection (125 ppb), anti‐humidity property and excellent long‐term stability. Such an excellent sensing performance is mainly attributed to unique interfaces catalytic sites induced by heteroatom interstitial doping. This finding opens a door for the design of smart gas sensors for environmental monitoring and industrial safety.

One-pot fabrication of petroleum pitch derived hierarchical porous carbon via a recyclable MgO-templating strategy for p-nitrophenol removal

Large-scale application of p-nitrophenol (PNP) will inevitably cause environmental issue, while adsorption treatment using carbon-based adsorbents is an effective way to remove PNP from water. Herein we report a recyclable MgO-templating one step strategy to synthesize N/O co-doped hierarchical porous carbons derived from inexpensive petroleum pitch (PP) with low-dose melamine. The MgO-template precursor could be removed and recycled by acetic acid leaching, almost without template consumption and saline wastewater generation during the whole synthetic process, and the porous carbons prepared from the recycled magnesium acetate exhibited consistent hierarchical pore structures. The obtained porous carbons possess tunable specific surface area with the varying ratio of MgO template to PP. The sample of MPHPC-1.25 with high specific surface area of 1010.73 m2/g and volume of 1.68 cm3/g exhibits remarkable PNP adsorption capacity of 626.02 mg/g in batch and of 427.15 mg/g in dynamic fixed-bed adsorption test. In addition, the MPHPC-1.25 shows outstanding tolerance for PNP adsorption under various ionic backgrounds and excellent adsorption stability and reusability in continuous adsorption-regeneration cycles, suggesting its high potential in practical application. Furthermore, the enhanced PNP adsorption mechanism based on hierarchical pore structure and strong electrostatic interaction between PNP and N, O species dominated by pyridinic-N and carboxyl groups was elucidated by a combination of material characterization, adsorption thermodynamic-kinetic evaluation and DFT calculations.

Metal-free synthesis of pyridyl conjugated microporous polymers with tunable bandgaps for efficient visible-light-driven hydrogen evolution

Conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) with tunable bandgaps have attracted increasing attention for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. However, the synthesis of CMPs usually needs expensive metal-based catalysts. Herein, we report a metal-free synthetic route to fabricate pyridyl conjugated microporous polymers (PCMPs) via a condensed polymerization between aldehyde and aryl ketone monomers. The PCMPs show widely tunable specific surface areas (347–418 m2/g), which were controlled via changing the used monomers. The PCMPs synthesized using monomers of dialdehyde and diacetylbenzene (diacetylpyridine) in the presence of pyridine exhibited the highest visible-light driven hydrogen evolution rate (9.56 µmol/h). These novel designed PCMPs provide wide adaptability to current materials designed for high-performance photocatalysts in different applications.

Sensitive chemoselectivity of cellulose nanocrystal films

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), self-assembled into a chiral nematic structure film, create an advanced platform for the fabrication of remarkable sensing, photonic and chiral nematic materials. Despite extensive progress in the knowledge of functions of CNCs, their chemoselectivity has rarely been reported. Here, we report a brand-new perspective of CNCs in chemoselectivity, which shows sensitive selectivity even between isomers of monosaccharides and disaccharides by generating discernible crystal patterns. This sensitive selectivity of glucose homologs is attributed to the selective carbohydrate–carbohydrate interactions (CCIs) through generating hydrogen bonds between CNC units and the glucose homologs, endowing a remarkable color variation of the CNC films. Moreover, the CCIs are distinct for different immersion times and concentrations of glucose homologs, verified through Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) spectra. Based on the sensitive CCIs, pristine CNC films are then used as templates to generate chiral mesoporous carbon films with tunable specific surface areas by assembly of CNC suspensions and the glucose homologs. We envision that the sensitive chemoselectivity of CNC films as well as precise structure modulation could provide insights into the recognition of carbohydrates and the preparation of mesoporous carbon in numerous practical applications. A pristine chiral nematic cellulose nanocrystal film with sensitive chemoselectivity to glucose homologues and even isomers of monosaccharides and disaccharide are prepared through self-assembly. For different kinds of glucose homologs, distinct crystal morphologies are formed due to the selective carbohydrate–carbohydrate interactions. Besides, the highly ordered left-helical layered structure of pristine cellulose nanocrystal film could be used as templates for the precise construction of delicate nanostructures.

Constructing novel hyper-crosslinked conjugated polymers through molecular expansion for enhanced gas adsorption performance

The porous organic polymers have been considered as effective materials for gas storage and adsorption. Herein, we synthesized highly crystalline nitrogen-rich covalent triazine frameworks (CTFs) by polycondensation for preparing the novel hyper-cross-linked conjugated polymers (HCCPs) with tunable specific surface area and pore volume through coupling Friedel-Crafts reaction, in which 1,4-Bis(chloromethyl)benzene and 4,4-Bis(chloromethyl)biphenyl as the expansion molecules were pillared between the layers of CTF-HUST. This technology not only increased the specific surface area and total pore volume of CTF-HUST by 2.56 and 4.68 times, but also greatly enhanced the utilization of adsorption sites of CTF-HUST. The HCCP2–1.25 exhibited the highest surface area (1349.29 m2g−1) among these HCCPs and demonstrated excellent adsorption performance for ethyl acetate (1605.14 mg/g), ethanol (1371.49 mg/g), 1,2-Dichloroethane (1971.68 mg/g), benzene (1151.77 mg/g) and toluene (1024.28 mg/g) due to the multiple C-H…O, C-H…Cl, O-H…N and C-H…π interactions between volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and HCCPs framework. Moreover, CO2 and H2 storage capacities of the HCCP2–1.25 were 8.02 wt% and 1.54 wt%, 1.66 and 1.67 times higher than CTF-HUST, respectively. This study developed a simple and effective molecular expansion strategy to synthesize a series of novel high-surface-area porous polymers for potential applications in the environmental field.

Controlled Morphology Synthesis of Nanostructured β-AlF3–x(OH)x with Tunable Specific Surface Area

In this work, the synthesis of β-AlF3–x(OH)x nanoparticles with very high specific surface area (SSA) using a microwave-assisted solvothermal process is reported. The influence of synthesis parameters on the morphology and SSA was investigated, and the nature of the solvent is shown to have the greatest impact. Five samples prepared using different solvent mixtures were deeply characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), N2 sorption, powder X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and 19F and 27Al high-field solid-state NMR. Their SSAs range from 25 to 345 m2·g–1 with an associated OH content slightly increasing from ≈16% (AlF2.52(OH)0.48) to ≈19% (AlF2.42(OH)0.58), as estimated by TGA and 27Al high-field solid-state NMR. Compared to previous reference work [Dambournet, D., Chem. Mater. 2008, 204 1459−1469], β-AlF3–x(OH)x nanoparticles with SSAs up to 4 times larger were obtained. TEM revealed the formation of hollow nanostructures except when the surface exceeds 300 m2·g–1, in which case isolated nanoparticles are observed. The sample with the highest SSA also displaying an appealing cumulative pore volume of 0.060 cm3·g–1, its hydrogen adsorption capability was evaluated to show that β-AlF3–x(OH)x nanoparticles have a potential interest for hydrogen storage applications.

Natural Clay-Based Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion Applications.

Among various energy storage and conversion materials, functionalized natural clays display significant potentials as electrodes, electrolytes, separators, and nanofillers in energy storage and conversion devices. Natural clays have porous structures, tunable specific surface areas, remarkable thermal and mechanical stabilities, abundant reserves, and cost‐effectiveness. In addition, natural clays deliver the advantages of high ionic conductivity and hydrophilicity, which are beneficial properties for solid‐state electrolytes. This review article provides an overview toward the recent advancements in natural clay‐based energy materials. First, it comprehensively summarizes the structure, classification, and chemical modification methods of natural clays to make them suitable in energy storage and conversion devices. Then, the particular attention is focused on the application of clays in the fields of lithium‐ion batteries, lithium–sulfur batteries, zinc‐ion batteries, chloride‐ion batteries, supercapacitors, solar cells, and fuel cells. Finally, the possible future research directions are provided for natural clays as energy materials. This review aims at facilitating the rapid developments of natural clay‐based energy materials through a fruitful discussion from inorganic and materials chemistry aspects, and also promotes the broad sphere of clay‐based materials for other utilization, such as effluent treatment, heavy metal removal, and environmental remediation.

Batch-scale synthesis of porous zinc manganese oxide with large specific surface area for Li-ion battery anodes

The spinel bimetal oxides with high specific surface area (SSA) are favorable to promote the energy storage performance of Li-ion batteries (LIBs). A facile and fast colloidal solution combustion strategy is explored to the batch-scale synthesis of porous zinc manganese oxide (ZnMn2O4) with tunable SSA. It is revealed that the volume of colloidal silica solution has a great influence on the SSA of porous ZnMn2O4. The porous ZnMn2O4–300 owns a maximum SSA of 186.4 m2 g−1, and a narrow pore size centered at 4–6 nm. Profiting from the high SSA and abundant mesopores, ZnMn2O4–300 electrode demonstrates superior Li storage performance when employed as LIB's anodes, delivering a desirable discharge capacity of 1784.3 mAh g−1 at the 1st discharge process, and 980.4 mAh g−1 of discharge capacity is remained at 500 mA g−1 after 165 cycles. Therefore, porous ZnMn2O4–300 has a broad developing prospect for LIB's anodes.

An efficient metal-free catalyst derived from waste lotus seedpod for oxygen reduction reaction

The sluggish kinetics of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has severely impeded the application of fuel cell technology. Developing economical and efficient biomass-based catalysts derived from natural waste to replace the expensive noble metal catalysts is becoming an attractive strategy. However, biomass materials often have geographical and seasonal characteristics. Thus, developing diversified and available biomass-derived catalysts is significant for different regions. In this work, N, P-dual doped porous carbon materials derived from waste lotus seedpod with tunable specific surface areas and porous structure are skillfully fabricated. The optimized sample exhibits excellent oxygen reduction reaction activity with an onset potential of 0.87 V vs. RHE and a Tafel slope of 81 mV dec−1, showing the 4e‒ electrons transfer path in alkaline solution. It also exhibits much better stability and methanol tolerance than commercial Pt/C. High ORR performance is considered to be ascribed to the abundant N, P dispersion and the hierarchical porous structure.

UiO-66 derived zirconia/porous carbon nanocomposites for efficient removal of carbamazepine and adsorption mechanism

Nanoarchitecture design of metal oxides/porous carbon nanocomposites from metal-organic frameworks is attracting considerable attention. Herein, UiO-66 was used as precursor and template to fabricate zirconia/porous carbon nanocomposites with tunable specific surface area and pore volume by a two-step calcination. The results showed that the tetragonal ZrO2 nanoparticles in carbon matrix gradually grow up and transform into monoclinic ZrO2 and ZrO as well as escape from the porous carbon nanocubes resulting in the increase of their specific surface area and pore volume with the increase of calcination temperature. The as-prepared nanocomposites at 1200 °C (ZPCNCs-12) exhibited a high specific surface area up to 468.9 m2 g−1, and excellent adsorption performance with high adsorption capacity (190 mg g−1), fast adsorption equilibrium (60 min) and recyclability for the removal of carbamazepine from water in a wide pH range of 2–12. FTIR spectra suggested that the adsorption of carbamazepine on ZPCNCs-12 was physical, and XPS results further confirmed that the adsorption was mainly dominated by the π-π electron donor-acceptor interaction between carbamazepine molecule and carbon nanocubes. It indicates that the two-step calcination of metal-organic frameworks is an effective approach to fabricate highly efficient sorbent for the removal of organic pollutants from water.

Composition Design of Block Copolymers for Porous Carbon Fibers

Block copolymer-based porous carbon fibers (PCFs) exhibit hierarchical porous structures, high surface areas, and exceptional electrochemical properties. However, the design of block copolymers for PCFs remains a challenge in advancing this type of fibrous material for energy storage applications. Herein, we have systematically synthesized a series of poly(methyl methacrylate-block-acrylonitrile) (PMMA-b-PAN) with well-controlled molecular weights and compositions to study the physical and electrochemical properties of PCFs. PCFs are synthesized via electrospinning, self-assembly, oxidation, and pyrolysis with no additives or chemical activation. By adjusting the molecular weights of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and poly(methyl methacrylate) blocks, we have achieved tunable mesopore sizes ranging from 10.9 to 18.6 nm and specific capacitances varied from 144 to 345 F g–1 at 10 mV s–1. Interestingly, regardless of the volume fraction of PAN, all the block copolymers produce hierarchical porous structures because of the self-assembly and cross-linking of PAN. Block copolymers with a PAN volume fraction of near 50% show the highest surface areas and gravimetric capacitances. The PCFs represent a new platform material with tunable specific surface areas, pore sizes, and electrochemical properties. This work has an immediate impact on designing block copolymers to create PCFs for applications in energy conversion and storage.

Cost-effective sol-gel synthesis of porous CuO nanoparticle aggregates with tunable specific surface area

CuO nanoparticles (NPs) are applied in various key technologies, such as catalysis, energy conversion, printable electronics and nanojoining. In this study, an economic, green and easy-scalable sol-gel synthesis method was adopted to produce submicron-sized nanoporous CuO NP aggregates with a specific surface area > 18 m²/g. To this end, a copper-carbonate containing precursor was precipitated from a mixed solution of copper acetate and ammonia carbonate and subsequently calcinated at T ≥ 250 °C. The thus obtained CuO nanopowder is composed of weakly-bounded agglomerates, which are constituted of aggregated CuO NPs with a tunable size in the range of 100–140 nm. The CuO aggregates, in turn, are composed of equi-axed primary crystallites with a tunable crystallite size in the range of 20–40 nm. The size and shape of the primary CuO crystallites, as well as the nanoporosity of their fused CuO aggregates, can be tuned by controlled variation of the degree of supersaturation of the solution via the pH and the carbonate concentration. The synthesized submicron-sized CuO aggregates can be more easily and safely processed in the form of a solution, dispersion or paste than individual NPs, while still offering the same enhanced reactivity due to their nanoporous architecture.

Aerosol synthesis of porous SiO2-cobalt-catalyst with tailored pores and tunable metal particle size for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS)

Cobalt nanoparticles supported on a well-defined porous structure are a promising catalyst for the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS). The catalytic efficiency of the porous catalyst depends on the properties of the support and on the properties of the active component. Methods such as wet-chemistry and flame synthesis are often limited by their variability in terms of support structure and size of the integrated active metal components. In this work, well-organised porous structures were produced using spray-drying of colloidal silica suspensions containing dissolved cobalt nitrate. This technique allows to synthesize catalyst particles with tunable specific surface area, pore size, cobalt particle size, and cobalt loading. The dried silica particles show interconnected pores, which makes it especially suitable for use as a catalyst support. Moreover, it is shown that the pore sizes and active metal particle sizes can be varied independently. In addition, the mass of cobalt oxide per silica support surface was identified as a controlling parameter for the metal oxide nanoparticle size for a given calcination temperature.

High Temperature Fabrication of Nanostructured Yttria-Stabilized-Zirconia (YSZ) Scaffolds by In Situ Carbon Templating Xerogels.

We demonstrate a method for the high temperature fabrication of porous, nanostructured yttria-stabilized-zirconia (YSZ, 8 mol% yttria - 92 mol% zirconia) scaffolds with tunable specific surface areas up to 80 m2·g-1. An aqueous solution of a zirconium salt, yttrium salt, and glucose is mixed with propylene oxide (PO) to form a gel. The gel is dried under ambient conditions to form a xerogel. The xerogel is pressed into pellets and then sintered in an argon atmosphere. During sintering, a YSZ ceramic phase forms and the organic components decompose, leaving behind amorphous carbon. The carbon formed in situ serves as a hard template, preserving a high surface area YSZ nanomorphology at sintering temperature. The carbon is subsequently removed by oxidation in air at low temperature, resulting in a porous, nanostructured YSZ scaffold. The concentration of the carbon template and the final scaffold surface area can be systematically tuned by varying the glucose concentration in the gel synthesis. The carbon template concentration was quantified using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), the surface area and pore size distribution was determined by physical adsorption measurements, and the morphology was characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Phase purity and crystallite size was determined using X-ray diffraction (XRD). This fabrication approach provides a novel, flexible platform for realizing unprecedented scaffold surface areas and nanomorphologies for ceramic-based electrochemical energy conversion applications, e.g. solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) electrodes.

Unique graphitized mesophase carbon microbead@niobium carbide-derived carbon composites as high performance anode materials of lithium-ion battery

To meet the requirements of the energy storage materials for high energy density and high power density, unique niobium carbide-derived carbon (NbC-CDC) coated graphitized mesophase carbon microbead (GMCMB) composites (GMCMB@NbC-CDC) with core-shell structure were prepared by chlorinating the precursor of graphitization mesophase carbon microbead@niobium carbide. The microstructure of NbC-CDC was characterized as mainly amorphous carbon combined with short and curved sheets of graphene, and the order degree of carbon layers increases with the chlorination temperature. The composites exhibited a tunable specific surface area and micropore volume, with micropore size of 0.6∼0.7nm. Compared with the pure GMCMB, the GMCMB@NbC-CDC composites manifested higher charge (726.9mAhg−1) and discharge capacities (458.9mAhg−1) at the first cycle, which was probably that Li ions could insert into not only carbon layers of GMCMB but also micropores of NbC-CDC. After 100 cycles, the discharge capacity of GMCMB@NbC-CDC chlorinated at 800°C still kept 384.6mAhg−1, which was much higher than that of the pure GMCMB (305.2mAhg−1). Furthermore, the GMCMB@NbC-CDC composites presented better rate performance at higher current densities.

Superior Adsorption Performance of Mesoporous Carbon Nitride for Methylene Blue and the Effect of Investigation of Different Modifications on Adsorption Capacity

A series of mesoporous carbon nitride (MCN) with tunable specific surface area, pore volume, and nitrogen content has been prepared by using SBA-15 as template and ethylenediamine (EDA) and carbon tetrachloride (CTC) as precursors, respectively. The composition and structural properties of the obtained materials were characterized by FT-IR, XRD, SEM, TEM, N2 adsorption-desorption, zeta potential, and elemental analysis. Results revealed that the largest special surface area could reach up to 667 m2 cm−3 and specific pore volume to 0.496 cm3 g−1, and the nitrogen content of MCN could be controlled by adjusting the EDA to CTC weight ratio. It was demonstrated for the first time that the synthesized MCN exhibited excellent adsorptive capability toward methylene blue (MB) and the adsorption capacity was attributed to the large specific surface area and surface functional groups. The effects of parameters, including pH, initial concentration, contact time, and temperature, were investigated in batch static adsorption experiments. Besides, the adsorption process of MB onto MCN is fitted to the Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order kinetic models, and the maximum adsorption amounts of MB on MCN were 360.8 mg g−1. Moreover, the thermodynamic analysis showed that the adsorption was endothermic and spontaneous. MCN remained to have high adsorption capacity after five times of recycling test. All these results demonstrated that MCN is a promising material for adsorbing cationic dye in aqueous solution.