Preparation of Porous Carbon Materials Derived from Hyper-Cross-Linked Asphalt/Coal Tar and Their High Desulfurization Performance

Abstract

The development of simple and highly effective desulfurization technology is attracting more and more interest in both industrial and academic fields. Here, a new family of precursors was prepared based on hyper-cross-linked asphalt and coal tar building blocks. Thanks to the preintroduced porous structure, the precursors were converted into carbons with high surface area and large micropore volume via a uniform carbonization process. The synergistic effects of high surface area, abundant microporous structure, and the introduced polar functional groups endow the carbon materials with high desulfurization performance. The results of repeated experiments show that the adsorption capacities of five carbonized samples are higher than 40 mg S g −1 , and the theoretical maximum adsorption capacity reaches 44.7 mg S g −1 . Particularly, the adsorption equilibrium of all the carbonized samples can be reached in 5 min. Moreover, the recycle adsorption performance was also studied. Toluene exhibits the best elution effect among three eluents (isooctane, para-xylene, and toluene) and the adsorption capacity remains 89% of the initial adsorption capacity after two adsorption− desorption cycles. It is believed that both innocent treatment of byproducts from petroleum industry and their high-value application for deep desulfurization in liquid hydrocarbon fuels benefit environmental protection and sustainable development.

Identification of Active Sites over Metal-Free Carbon Catalysts for Flue Gas Desulfurization

“…For a long time, whether the desulfurization activity originated from oxygen functional groups, defects, or sp 2 -hybridized carbon atoms is a topic of intense debate. Most recently, the oxygen-containing groups over carbon surfaces have been demonstrated to be intrinsically more active than the sp 2 -hybridized carbon atoms or defects in the adsorption of SO 2 as well as oxygen activation. ,− In this sense, the oxygenated groups on the carbon surface were believed to be closely related to the FGD process. , …”

Preparation of asphalt-based microporous organic polymers with sulfur bridges

“…Recently, our group reported the large-scale preparation of asphalt-based hyper-cross-linked polymers via a one-step Friedel–Crafts alkylation reaction as well as their performance for gas adsorption 6 and volatile organic compound adsorption 7 and desulfurization. 8 Besides, reactions between sulfur and thiols, 9 halogen atoms 10 and vinyl groups 11 (known as inverse vulcanization) have also been investigated to tackle the excess sulfur problem. However, both methods either need a large excess of catalysts or involve the consumption of costly building blocks, which complicates the purification process and limits their large-scale preparation.…”