Preparation of liquefied wood-based activated carbon fibers by different activation methods for methylene blue adsorption

Abstract

In order to study the adsorption for methylene blue (MB), five types of activated carbon fibers (ACFs) were prepared from liquefied wood by different activation methods. The ACFs activated by pure physical and chemical activation were dominantly microporous and mesoporous, respectively, which showed relatively low adsorption capacity for MB. The chemical/physical coupling activation was an effective method to improve the mesoporosity resulting in the reinforcement of MB adsorption ability. ACFs by chemical–physical reactivation even had abundant macropores in addition to well-developed micro- and mesoporosity, while physical–chemical reactivation did not seem to be an efficient one. Their potentially different mechanisms of pore formation and kinetics adsorption of MB were investigated.