Enhanced VOCs Recycling by Nano Fe/FeOx Decorated Nano Porous Carbon

Abstract

The recycling of industrial VOCs has attracted enormous interest for its significant roles in mitigating VOCs emissions and reducing human and environmental risks. Here, we report a highly efficient multifunctional Fe/FeOx/NPC adsorbent, which shows high adsorption capacity for toluene (200 mg·g-1) and ethyl acetate (154 mg·g-1) and 100% regeneration efficiency without deactivation after five cycles. By introducing nano Fe/FeOx, the SBET and pore volume of NPC is increased from 163.66 m2·g-1 and 0.142 mL·g−1 to 361.30 m2·g-1 and 0.22 mL·g−1, respectively. It is achieved by a multifunctional adsorbent that provides efficient adsorption and thermal effect sites (Fe0, FeOx and graphitic carbon), which cooperatively facilitates an adsorption-regeneration. More significantly, the thermal effect sites and diverse pore structures play crucial role in the successive and synergetic separation and desorption of VOCs from multifunctional adsorbent. The thermal effect sites on Fe/FeOx/NPC can effectively inhibit the conversion of the thermal activation reaction of VOCs into high-boiling carbonates, thereby avoiding the formation of heel build-up and deactivation of adsorbents. Our research introduces an efficient VOCs recycling approach enabled by subtle control of the VOCs regeneration on a multifunctional interface.