Insight into specific surface area, microporosity and N, P co-doping of porous carbon materials in the acetone adsorption

Porous carbon materials doped with nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) were synthesized by the chemical activation method to study their performance in the acetone adsorption at ambient temperature. Especially, the sample activated at 800 degrees C had the highest acetone capacity of 945.3 mg g(-1), which was well fitted by the Langmuir (L) and Langmuir-Freundlich (L-F) models. The physico-chemical characterizations and DFT calculations indicated its high dispersion of adsorption sites and accessibility of acetone to adsorption sites: large specific surface area (2762.0 m(2) g(-1)), uniform dispersion of micropores (1.096 cm(3) g(-1)), and good adsorption affinity with acetone by pyrrolic-N (-0.35759 eV) and C-P-O (-0.50277 eV) functional groups. Considering this, we concluded that the acetone adsorption was dominated by the surface physical structure (specific surface area and microporocity) while N and P surface functional groups played a second role in the adsorption enhancement effect.

Automated summary

Nitrogen and phosphorous-doped porous carbon materials synthesized by chemical activation method exhibited excellent acetone adsorption performance, with the sample activated at 800 degrees Celsius having the highest acetone capacity. The high dispersion of adsorption sites, large specific surface area, and good adsorption affinity with acetone indicated the dominant role of surface physical structure in acetone adsorption.