An assessment of activated carbon cloth microporosity change due to chemical activation

Controlled modification of micropore volumes of samples from the FM1-series of activated carbon cloth can be achieved via selective oxidation: strong caustic treatment leads to an increase in volume, while peroxydisulfate treatment leads to a decrease in volume. Pore volume increases are determined to be due to inorganic content leaching, determined via XPS analyses, developing small primary micropores for the least activated carbon cloth (FM1/250) and a widening of the pore width for the most activated carbon cloth (FM1/700). All cloths exhibited Type I nitrogen adsorption isotherms both prior to and post oxidative treatment.