In-situ doping of nitrogen and aluminum on microporous carbon for efficient dichloromethane adsorption

Chlorinated volatile organic compounds (Cl-VOCs) pollute the ecological environment and damage the human health due to their extraordinary stability. To circumvent these risks, a concise integration strategy was proposed to synthesize porous carbon (PC) by N/Al co-doping with decent surface area and concentrated micropore distribution for effective Cl-VOCs adsorption. N/Al co-doped microporous carbon (NAlPC) presented superior dichloromethane (DCM) adsorption capacity (182.50 mg/g at 0.02 kPa and 611.29 mg/g at 39.73 kPa) and outstanding recycling performance (maintaining 87 % of DCM adsorption capacity after five adsorption/ desorption regeneration cycles). DCM adsorption experiments showed that pore structure and surface chemistry of NAlPC have a distinct impact on DCM adsorption behavior under different pressure. Desorption tests and theory simulations jointly proved that the introduction of N could develop the micropores of NAlPC, which is beneficial to DCM adsorption. And the doping of Al could counteract the prevention of N in the interaction between NAlPC and DCM, maintaining the powerful binding of NAlPC with DCM. This work provides a facile and economic method to prepare microporous carbon by changing its pore structure and regulating its surface chemistry to enhance the DCM adsorption force and capacity, offering a great insight to the fabrication of microporous carbon adsorbents with hierarchical pore structure and doped heterogeneous element for VOCs abatement.