VOCs adsorption of resin-based activated carbon and bamboo char: Porous characterization and nitrogen-doped effect.

• Nitrogen doped carbon materials with hierarchical porous structure and ultrahigh S BET were prepared. • N-functional groups provided a stronger polarity for adsorbent and enhanced the adsorption of VOCs. • The Langmuir-Freundlich model was found to fit quite well with the adsorption equilibrium data. • Adsorption mechanism of VOCs was clarified by experimental and DFT methods. The objective of this study was to assess the VOCs (methanol and toluene) adsorption capacity of doped porous carbon materials (resin-based carbon and bamboo char) by experiments and theoretical calculations. Results showed N-doped porous carbon material exhibited a high specific area (2293.2 m2 g−1), a desirable microporocity (0.90 cm3 g−1), and a large adsorption capacity for methanol (915.3 mg g−1) and toluene (622.9 mg g−1), which were better than those derived from bamboo char. According to the density functional theory calculation, in terms of different N-containing functional groups, the results showed that methanol adsorption was dominated by the electrostatic interaction between the carbon surface and methanol, while toluene was mainly trapped through π-π dispersive interaction with the aromatic ring moving to the carbon surface. This study gave us hints to conduct the doping of polarized element to adsorb polar gases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]