Fast one-step preparation of porous carbon with hierarchical oxygen-enriched structure from waste lignin for chloramphenicol removal

This work explored the use of porous carbon (PC) materials converted from waste lignin as raw materials for the removal of chloramphenicol (CAP) in water. The PC with controllable pores was prepared through a facile, cost-effective one-step method. The physical and chemical properties of the material were characterized by BET, SEM, FT-IR, and XRD, and the best conditions for preparation were selected based on the results of adsorption experiments. The PC, which was prepared at reaction temperature of 800 °C and the K 2 CO 3 /sodium lignosulfonate mass ratio of 4, namely PC-800-4, had a high specific surface area (1305.5 m 2 g −1 ) and pore volume (0.758 cm 3 g −1 ). At a lower initial concentration of CAP ( C 0 = 120 mg L −1 ), the maximum adsorption capacity of this adsorbent was 534.0 mg g −1 at 303 K. In addition, PC-800-4 maintained good adsorption performance in a wide pH range and strongly resisted the interference of ions and humic acid. The results showed that the adsorption removal CAP was based on physical adsorption and chemical adsorption as a process supplement. The advantages of wide sources, high efficiency and speed, wide application, and rich oxygen-containing functional groups made the adsorbent have great application potential for removal chloramphenicol from water.