Synthesis of highly ordered Fe-containing mesoporous carbon materials using soft templating routes

Highly ordered Fe-containing mesoporous carbon materials were directly synthesized through simple soft templating routes by using resorcinol–formaldehyde (RF) as a carbon precursor, triblock copolymer Pluronic F127 as a template agent and hydrated iron nitrite as an iron source. The main strategy of this approach is to use the acidity self-generated in the aqueous solutions of the iron precursors as the catalyst for RF polymerization and no any additional mineral acid was necessary. The resultant materials were characterized using nitrogen sorption, X-ray diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy. It was found that the final products with a highly ordered mesostructure were obtained when the Fe/R ratio was around 0.1. For those with Fe/R ratios smaller or greater than this value, the ordering decreased. Iron species in the mesoporous carbon matrix existed in two states, metallic Fe and γ-Fe2O3. Metallic Fe nanoparticles are dominantly buried in the walls of the mesoporous carbon while γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles are mostly located on the surface. The resulting materials with Fe/R ratio of 0.1 (Fe/OMC-0.10) exhibit specific activity for the catalytic wet peroxide oxidation (CWPO) of phenol solution with hydrogen peroxide. The phenol and TOC conversion can reach to 93.0% and 61.7% within 180min at an initial of phenol 247ppm under very mild conditions (P=1atm and T=80°C).