Template-free synthesis of porous carbon from merbau wood by H2O2-ZnCl2 hydrothermal treatment

Abstract

Zinc(II) chloride, as an activating agent and H2O2 as an oxidizing agent, prepared the hydrothermal treatment synthesis of porous carbon (HC). The hydrothermal followed by carbonization and then by oxidation at 350 °C under oxygen stream (HC-Ox). All the products characterized by XRD, FT-IR, amount of oxygenated functional groups (OFGs) obtained by the Boehm method, the total acid amount by NH3 base vapour adsorption, surface area analyzer (SAA) and SEM. The XRD results showed that all of the carbonized samples were amorphous, which characteristic for porous carbonized. The results of FT-IR and Boehm titration revealed that the phenolic group was the highest contributor to OFGs on HC-Ox samples (7.095 meq/g) and carboxylic groups of 2.685 meq/g. The maximum BET surface area was found to be 443.5 (m2/g) for C-Ox and 232.2 (m2/g) for HC-Ox. The SEM image displayed that the morphology of the HC samples was a stacking honeycomb-like structure.