Carbon silica composites for sulfur dioxide and ammonia adsorption

Abstract This work focuses on creating nanoporous carbon silica composites from MCM-41 and two carbon sources, sucrose and furfuryl alcohol. The carbon silica composite with sucrose as the carbon phase was synthesized using a novel low temperature procedure. These novel, biphasic materials were tested for their ability to adsorb two distinct types of gases: sulfur dioxide, an acidic gas, and ammonia, a basic gas. The materials are characterized by XRD, nitrogen adsorption isotherms, high resolution TEM, and TGA. The characterization techniques show that impregnation with the carbon phases does not disrupt the hexagonal mesoporous silica structure. Equilibrium breakthrough results show that the presence of the carbon phase enhances both ammonia and sulfur dioxide adsorption capacities compared to the parent MCM-41 and BPL activated carbon.