Hierarchical porous carbons (HPCs) are emerging as multifunctional materials capable of addressing diverse energy and environmental research due to their tunable pore structure and surface nature. Herein, we report a scalable synthesis of in situ nitrogen- and oxygen-co-doped HPCs using amine-functionalized tannic acid. By adjusting KOH dosage and activation temperature, the resulting HPCs exhibited high surface areas (up to 3411 m2 g-1) with well-tailored micro/mesoporous architectures. These structural characteristics enabled the same material platform to be assessed for two environmentally significant yet mechanistically distinct adsorptions of gas-phase CO2 capture and aqueous-phase antibiotic removal. HPC-1-800 exhibited high CO2 uptake (7.48 mmol g-1 at 273 K and 1 bar), facilitated by ultramicropore filling and the existence of CO2-philic N/O-functionalities. In contrast, HPC-3-800 showed outstanding adsorption capacities for sulfamethoxazole (629.0 mg g-1) and ciprofloxacin (549.8 mg g-1) at 298 K, primarily driven by abundant mesoporosity and diverse surface functional groups that promote multiple adsorption interactions. These materials also retained high adsorption performance in synthetic urine and ionic solutions, confirming their robustness under complex conditions. Both adsorption processes were mechanistically elucidated using various analytical techniques, along with kinetic and thermodynamic results. Overall, a unified material design enables HPCs to address both gas-phase carbon capture and aqueous-phase pharmaceutical removal.
Puthiaraj et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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