Facile, low-cost, and sustainable preparation of hierarchical porous carbons from ion exchange resin: An improved potassium activation strategy

•A series of activated carbon was derived from low-cost ion exchange resin.•Highly dispersed potassium ions were induced which served as activating agent.•Considerable lower amount of KOH is needed for carbon activation.

Active carbons were prepared from low cost ion exchange resin, the samples were characterized by means of low temperature (−196 °C) N2 adsorption, XPS, SEM, TEM, etc., and performance in CO2 and phenol adsorption were evaluated. It was found that samples with hierarchical structures and highly developed micro–mesoporous system could be obtained owing to the pre-induced highly dispersed potassium species by ion exchange, which served as an efficient activation agent, this represents an important improvement as compared with the normally reported KOH activation protocol in terms of lowering the usage of the corrosive KOH, and thus the sustainability of the obtained material. The optimized sample, R-K-700, showed the highest CO2 and phenol uptake of 13.6 wt.% and 167.3 mg/g, respectively, and more importantly, samples with an ordered spherical form and similar adsorption performance to the powdered sample can be easily fabricated, making the current carbons and preparation methodology a great promise for practical applications.

Graphical abstractPorous activated carbons with promising performance in CO2 and phenol adsorption were prepared from low cost ion exchange resin by a sustainable way.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide