Hollow porous carbon sphere prepared by a facile activation method and its rapid phenol removal

• Hollow porous carbon spheres prepared via a facial activation method.
• One-step activation treatment to obtain hollow and porous structure simultaneously.
• This material possess high surface area, large pore volume and narrow pore size.
• It possesses an excellent adsorption property for the removal of phenol.

Hollow porous carbon spheres (HPCS) were prepared by a facile activation strategy. During the one-step activation treatment we could obtain the hollow and porous structures simultaneously. The HPCS materials possessed good monodispersity, uniform hollow morphology and very high surface area. Besides, these materials also exhibited excellent adsorption ability for the removal of phenol from the waste water.