Effect of reaction time on structure of ordered mesoporous carbon microspheres prepared from carboxymethyl cellulose by soft-template method

Cellulose is the most abundant renewable organic material which constitutes about over 50% of plants' matter. Till now, many researchers have successfully produced CMC from agricultural waste cellulose sources, Hence, using CMC as raw materials prepared high value-added materials will provide theoretical support for direct utilization of rough crops. In this paper, carbon microspheres with tunable, ordered, mesoporous structures and properties were prepared via soft-template/hydrothermal method using carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as the carbon precursor and the triblock copolymer Pluronic F127 as the soft template by varying the reaction time. The mesoporous structure was formed by cooperative assembly of inorganic species with the surfactants; different space groups and pore orientations were formed by varying the reaction time, leading to the generation of a diverse intermediate liquid crystal phase. As a result, a controllable mesoporous structure was obtained that varied from stripe-like hexagonal, mixed hexagonal and cubic, to cubic when reaction time increased from 10 to 30 h. Cage-like spheres with perfectly ordered cubic mesoporous structure were obtained when the reaction time was 30 h. Components of the F127 molecules participated more effectively in the reaction with CMC and its intermediate products, creating a more uniform structure as reaction time increased, and producing carbon microspheres with favorable thermal stability. The diverse, ordered mesoporous structure resulted in a high tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) adsorption capacity. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.