Synthesis of biomass tar-derived foams through spontaneous foaming for ultra-efficient herbicide removal from aqueous solution

Pyrolysis is one of the most important approaches to convert waste biomass into renewable energy and biomaterials, and the tar is the inevitable by-product of this process. In this study, carbon foams were prepared innovatively with biomass tar as the precursor through spontaneous gas foaming approach and used for dicamba removal from aqueous solution. The results showed that prepared carbon foams had unique properties including rich microporous structure and high specific surface area (reaching 1667 m(2)/g). In addition, the prepared carbons had high thermal stability due to the high graphitic degree. The adsorption results indicated that pH showed a great effect on the adsorption of dicamba onto the prepared carbon foams. The carbon foam exhibited ultra-fast dicamba removal and ultra-high adsorption capacity of 891.74 mg/g at room temperature. The adsorption process was well described by pseudo-second-order kinetics and Langmuir isotherm models. The thermodynamic study indicated dicamba adsorption onto the prepared carbon foams was a spontaneous and exothermic process. In addition, the good reusability from recovery test demonstrated that the prepared carbon foams had promising potential for dicamba removal from aqueous solution. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.