Preparation of polyurethane-based foam carbon adsorption materials

In order to overcome the problems of separation and dust pollution of traditional activated carbon(AC), a novel foam carbon was prepared by adding commercial granular AC to polyurethane precursor then foaming and carbonizing. Nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherm (N2/77K) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used for pore structure and surface morphology characterization. TG-DTA measurement was carried out for the analysis of thermal characteristics of polyurethane skeleton. Adsorption performance was evaluated using phenol, iodine and methylene blue as model compounds. The results showed that the maximum SBET could reach 655.0 m2/g, iodine value 525.2 mg/g and phenol adsorption capacity 0.706 mmol/g. SEM images indicated that the existence of polyurethane blocked only part of pore and less affected the adsorption capacity of AC. Comparing the adsorption performance of foam carbon prepared under different conditions, we found that PU/AC-1-n  was much higher than that of PU/AC-2-n. In the case of PU/AC-1-n, polyurethane was closely linked with AC and then resulted in higher strength.