Optimization of Mesoporous Carbon Adsorbents from Sucrose and Aerosil 380 Hydrophilic Silica by Hard Templating

Mesoporous carbon materials were synthesized by using sucrose as a carbon source and hydrophilic Aerosil 380 as a hard template. A two-stage optimization process based on the response surface methodology using a central composite design (RSM-CCD) was employed to enhance the adsorption performance of the material for the crystal violet (CV) dye. The first stage of optimization yielded a maximum adsorption capacity of 155.4 mg g-1 under carbonization conditions of 800 °C, 18.41 °C min-1, and 60 min. Further, optimization of sucrose (23% m/V) and silica template (17.07% m/V) concentrations led to a significantly higher capacity of 223.5 mg g-1. Characterization techniques confirmed the formation of amorphous graphitic structure (XRD), thermal decomposition of the organic phase near 350 °C (TGA-DTG), and effective Aerosil 380 removal confirmed by EDS and LIBS. Morphological and structural analyses using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) revealed a disordered mesoporous structure with turbostratic carbon layers. The optimized carbon exhibited a hierarchical mesoporous structure, with an A total of 607.8 m2 g-1, V total of 1.458 cm3 g-1, and an average D p of 9.6 nm, demonstrating strong potential for micropollutant adsorption applications.