Mesoporous carbon materials with different morphology for pesticide adsorption

A facile and effective co-assembly approach has been developed to controllably fabricate mesoporous carbon materials (MC) with different morphologies. 1-Alkyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide and tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) are applied to assemble with resorcinol/formaldehyde resin (RF) through electrostatic interaction to produce tunable morphologies by simply changing the concentration of the reactants. The increasing in concentration of reactant led to tunable structure from irregular particle aggregates to thin sheet, fluffy spheres and then to hollow olive-like structure, which shows variable adsorption performance for pesticide wastewater treatment. MC with regular spherical morphology, dual-mesoporous structure and high surface area shows higher adsorption capacity than MC with other morphologies, proving its excellent prospects in treating pesticide wastewater.