Doctoral Thesis
Engineering nanoporous carbon beads for enhanced adsorption of pharmaceuticals and industrial ions
Murdoch University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Murdoch University
2025
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60867/00000058
Abstract
To design more efficient carbonaceous materials, it is essential to understand how porous structure influences adsorption performance. Such materials have wide-ranging applications, including water purification from industrial contaminants and pharmaceuticals, controlled drug release, and precious metal recovery. This research investigates the design, synthesis, and characterisation of highly tunable nanoporous carbon beads, fabricated from styrene-divinylbenzene copolymers with varying cross-linking. The beads undergo carbonisation followed by physical activation with CO₂, CO₂–steam mixtures, or steam at 1173 K. A novel ultrasonic spray nozzle–quartz tube reactor enables precise control over pore development by spraying micron-sized water droplets ultrasonically into the carrier gas or directly into the furnace.
Advanced characterisation, including electron microscopy, nitrogen porosimetry, pulse field gradient NMR, and wide- and small-angle X-ray scattering, revealed that activation with highly concentrated supercritical steam produced well-defined hierarchical pore structures spanning supermicropores, mesopores, and macropores. Kinetic studies showed that hierarchical pore structures markedly improved gold ion recovery from cyanide solutions compared with an industrial activated carbon benchmark and affected cisplatin adsorption from aqueous solutions. The produced beads served as benchmark materials to test a machine learning algorithm predicting paracetamol adsorption from pore size distributions, with experimental validation confirming micropore filling and monolayer formation in mesopores.
This research demonstrates that hierarchical pores in nanoporous carbon beads substantially improve adsorption performance in both environmental and biomedical applications. By combining novel supercritical steam activation with advanced characterisation and machine learning, it provides new strategies for designing optimised porous carbons for targeted adsorption processes.
Details
- Title
- Engineering nanoporous carbon beads for enhanced adsorption of pharmaceuticals and industrial ions
- Authors/Creators
- Michael J Hough
- Contributors
- Piotr Kowalczyk (Supervisor) - Murdoch University, School of Mathematics, Statistics, Chemistry and PhysicsGerd Schröder-Turk (Supervisor) - Murdoch University, School of Mathematics, Statistics, Chemistry and PhysicsArtur Deditius (Supervisor) - Murdoch University, School of Mathematics, Statistics, Chemistry and Physics
- Awarding Institution
- Murdoch University; Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Publisher
- Murdoch University
- Identifiers
- 991005852589007891
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Mathematics, Statistics, Chemistry and Physics
- Resource Type
- Doctoral Thesis
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