Mesoporous Carbon Nanomaterials as Environmental Adsorbents

The transportation and diffusion of the guest objects or molecules in the porous carbon nanomaterials can be facilitated by reducing the pathway and resistance. The reduced pathway depends on the porous nature of carbon nanomaterials. Classification of porous carbon materials by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has given a new opportunity to design the pores as per their applicability and to understand the mobility of ions, atoms, and molecules in the porous network of carbon materials and also advanced their countless applicability. However, synthesis of carbon nanomaterials with a desired porous network is still a great challenge. Although, remarkable developments have taken place in the recent years, control over the pores size and/or hierarchical porous architectures, especially in the synthesis of carbon nanospheres (CNSs) and ordered mesoporous carbon (OMCs) is still intriguing. The micro and mesoporous CNSs and OMCs have been prepared by a variety of procedures and over a wide range of compositions using various different surfactant templates and carbon precursors etc. The mechanisms of formation of micro-mesopore in the CNSs and OMCs are still evolving. On the other hand, the urge for adsorbents with very high adsorption capacities for removing contaminants from water is growing steadily. In this review, we address the state-of-the-art synthesis of micro and mesoporous CNSs and OMCs, giving examples of their applications for adsorptive removals of contaminants including our own research studies.