Amorphous Carbon Nanocages by Thermal CVD Synthesis from the Precursor of Phenol, and their Excellent Adsorbility for Dye

Abstract

The use of adsorption capacity of porous and large-surface-area materials is an important approach to treat dye-containing effluents. In this study, the porous carbon nanocages (CNCs) were synthesized from the precursor of phenol in home-made chemical vapor deposition (CVD) setup at 600–1000°C, and were convincingly characterized. The as-prepared CNCs are amorphous, porous and hollow, and have the size of 50–100[Formula: see text]nm in width, 100–200[Formula: see text]nm in length and several nm in thickness, causing to the large surface area of 800[Formula: see text]m2/g and pore volume of 1.63[Formula: see text]cm3/g. The growth of amorphous-like CNCs was related to the thermolysis species of phenol. Interestingly, each CNC has large volume hollow coelom and small opening (a typical ink bottle pore), being in favor of adsorption but in disfavor of desorption, thus it is very fit for acting as the adsorbent of dye. As expected, the products showed excellent adsorbility of rhodamine B when compared with the most used activated carbon having straight and slit pore structures, displaying broad application prospects in removing dye from wastewater.