Drastically boosting volatile acetone capture enabled by N-doping activated carbon: An interesting deep surface digging effect

Affording the ultrahigh structural properties and rich surface groups in traditional activated carbon (AC) together to enable the efficient control of polar volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) is significant but challenged. Herein, we report the skilled construction of super activated carbon (AC) adsorbent (SBET = 4402 m2 g- 1) via Ndoping tactic to trigger the deep surface digging effect for banana peel-derived AC (SBET = 3897 m2 g-1) and remarkably reinforced the multilayer adsorption behavior by the post-implanted surface N species. Impressively, the resultant optimized adsorbent UC-5 shows nearly 1.83 folds enhancement of polar VOCs(volatile organic chemicals) that acetone adsorption capacity (44.89 mmol g-1) under 30 kPa of acetone partial pressure compared to the original AC (24.57 mmol g-1), which is known as the record acetone adsorption capacity. Besides, the boosting adsorption effect was well inherited and enlarged under a higher saturated vapor pressure of acetone in the static adsorption process, which was further evidenced by dynamic adsorption breakthrough experiments. The intensive studies revealed that the surface digging of the used urea dopant not only contributed to the enriching of surface N and improved the structural properties and thermal stability (575 degrees C) but also reserved more oxygen content of original AC compared to the resulted counterparts using melamine, which were together responsible for the drastic increase of acetone adsorption. This work provides the new possibility for the adsorption of polar VOCs gas via exploiting the outstanding structural properties and surface N interaction.

Automated summary

This study successfully constructed a super activated carbon adsorbent through Ndoping tactic, which significantly enhanced the adsorption efficiency compared to original activated carbon. The optimized adsorbent UC-5 showed nearly 1.83 folds enhancement in acetone adsorption capacity under 30 kPa pressure, setting a new record for acetone adsorption.