Facile synthesis of porous carbon sheets from potassium acetate via in-situ template and self-activation for highly efficient chloramphenicol removal

It is still a big challenge to obtain porous carbons for antibiotics removal by simple methods. Here, we reported a facile, cost-effective and one-pot approach for preparation of porous carbon sheets via in-situ template and self-activation using potassium acetate as single precursor. The optimal porous carbon was prepared at reaction temperature of 900 °C to obtain the highest BET surface area of 2358.57 m² g⁻¹ with equilibrium adsorption capacity of 588.24 mg g⁻¹ for chloramphenicol (CAP) at 298 K. The adsorption ability of this highly porous carbon was far higher than most adsorbents mentioned in previous literature. Meanwhile, adsorption equilibrium could achieve rapidly within 250 min. The Langmuir isotherm model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model were well fitted to adsorption experimental data. Significantly, the adsorbent exhibited excellent stability and regeneration performance after four times cycles. The high adsorption capacity, fast kinetic, chemical stability and regeneration ability of this porous carbon make it a candidate for antibiotics removal in wastewater treatment.