Investigation of MOF-derived humidity-proof hierarchical porous carbon frameworks as highly-selective toluene absorbents and sensing materials

• Published in: Journal of hazardous materials 2021-06, Vol.411, p.125034-125034, Article 125034
• Main Authors: Li, Zehui, Yuan, Yi, Wu, Hao, Li, Xinghui, Yuan, Menglei, Wang, Huaizhang, Wu, Xiaoxue, Liu, Shuai, Zheng, Xianming, Kim, Mingjun, Zheng, Haoyun, Rehman, Sadia, Jiang, Guangya, Fu, Wangyang, Jiang, Jingkun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Hierarchical porous carbon; Metal-organic frameworks; Quartz crystal microbalance; Volatile organic compounds; ZIF-8
• ISSN: 0304-3894; 1873-3336
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.125034

Carbon frameworks (CFs) derived from metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been produced as adsorbents of toluene. To further obtain optimum hierarchical porous carbon structure of CFs, different treatment temperatures were applied to a typical kind of MOFs (ZIF-8). The adsorption capacity of the toluene of hierarchical porous CFs obtained from ZIF-8 under 1100 °C (CF-1100, adsorption capacity of 208.5 mg/g) was higher than that of other carbonization temperature and MOFs. Impressively, the adsorbent CF-1100 also exhibited strong hydrophobicity, low desorption temperature, and good selectivity to toluene. The adsorption capacity decreased by only 10.4% under wet condition compared with the dry condition, standing on the top of the recently reported adsorbents. The impressive adsorption performance of CF-1100 is attributed to the larger specific surface area (1024 m2/g) and pore volume (0.497 cm3/g), newly generated micropores (pore width is 0.6–0.8 nm) and mesopores (pore width above 10 nm), and carbonaceous structure with higher degree of graphitization. Based on the adequate adsorption performance, CF-1100 coated quartz crystal microbalances as sensor also showed a high sensitivity of 0.4004 Hz/ppm and small relative standard deviations of 1.0745% for toluene sensing. This contribution provides a foundation for optimizing potential adsorbents and sensing materials for air pollution abatement. [Display omitted] •Hierarchical porous carbonaceous structure was produced by carbonization of ZIF-8.•1100 °C is the optimized temperature for maximum adsorption of ZIF-8.•CF-1100 showed the advantages of humidity resistance ability, reusability, and selectivity to toluene adsorption.•CF-1100 coated quartz crystal microbalances as sensor exhibited good selectivity and reproducibility of toluene.