Ultrahigh adsorption of typical antibiotics onto novel hierarchical porous carbons derived from renewable lignin via halloysite nanotubes-template and in-situ activation

In decade years, antibiotics residual has received considerable attention because of their detrimental effects on human health and the ecosystem, thereby resolution of this issue become a burning research project. Herein, we first prepared a novel sustainable hierarchical porous carbons (HPCs) (named LCTA) via the combination of halloysite nanotubes-template and in-situ KOH activation, using industrial by-product sodium lignin sulfonate (SLS) as biomass precursor. It was demonstrated that both HNTs template and KOH activation played a key role in the enhancements of the porosity and accessible surface. LTCA exhibited a high specific surface area of 2320 m²/g and large pore volume of 1.342 cm³/g. Moreover, LTCA showed an ultrahigh adsorption capacity for tetracycline (TC) of 1297.0 mg/g and chloramphenicol (CAP) of 1067.2 mg/g at 298 K, which are far higher than those adsorbents previously reported. Additionally, fast adsorption kinetics, excellent environmental adaptability and good regeneration ability make this novel HPC as a promising material for antibiotics wastewater treatment practices.