Porous carbons have received great attention because of their potential use as adsorbents, sensors, catalytic supports and others. Among the available methods for preparing these solids, the sequential templating emerges as an efficient way to tail carbon materials, with large specific surface areas, high porosity, controlled narrow pore size distribution and different functional groups. The template process is based on the infiltration of carbon precursors into the pores of inorganic frameworks. This work reviews the most important variables involved in the sequential template process to prepare micro, meso and macroporous carbon with tailored properties as well as their applications.

This study reports the preparation of high surface area amorphous carbon by pyrolysis of TiO2/poly(furfuryl alcohol) nanocomposite. This nanocomposite was synthesized by hydrolysis of titanium tetra-isopropoxide/furfuryl alcohol mixture. All samples were characterized by XRD, FT-IR, Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The results indicated the effective FA polymerization on TiO2 (anatase) nanoparticles and polymer conversion to amorphous carbon after pyrolysis, simultaneously with TiO2 anatase-rutile phase transition. After the oxide nanoparticles dissolution by an aqueous HF solution the obtained carbon was extremely porous, with high surface area (700 m² g-1), similar to a carbon foam. With this new carbon material we carried out a study of kinetic of the adsorption of the reactive black 5 (RB5) azo-dye.

Mesoporous carbons were obtained by sequential nano-casting using the following hard templates: (i) mesoporous silica nanospheres with MCM-41 or MCM-48 analogous structure; (ii) non-porous silica nanospheres and (iii) pyrogenic silica (Aerosil 200). These silica templates (patrix) were impregnated with sucrose, carbonized at 800 ºC under nitrogen atmosphere and finally the silica dissolved with hydrofluoric acid. It was observed that the specific surface area of the carbon matrixes can be enhanced reducing the diameter of the silica nanospheres or the distance between them by agglomeration prior to the impregnation of the silica patrix with sucrose. Mesoporous carbons with specific surface areas higher than 500 m² g-1 were obtained using mesoporous silica spheres. In this case, the carbon matrixes contain mesopores with a narrow pore size distribution and with diameters in the order of the wall thickness of the mesoporous silica used as hard template.

In this manuscript, the electromagnetic wave absorption properties of sustainable porous carbon composites were evaluated over the X-band frequency range (8.2 - 12.4 GHz). The porous carbon material was made from the byproduct of cellulose production and was used as additive on the development of radar absorbing material (RAM) composites. These porous carbon materials have different characteristics, such as porosity size (180 µm < Ø1 < 250 µm and 425 µm < Ø2 < 500 µm) and particle size (ϕ1 < 250 µm and 250 µm < ϕ2 < 425 µm). Composite materials were also studied as frequency selective surface (FSS) structures. It was shown how complex permittivity and reflection loss (RL) can be manipulated over the frequency range using FSS structure. While regular RAM presented RL of 19 dB at ~11.8 GHz, FSS structure presented a RL of 19 dB shifted to 12.4 GHz regarding the same carbon porous material (with particles between 250 and 425 µm and porosity between 180 and 250 µm). It was demonstrated here the potential use of sustainable porous carbon as RAM, and how FSS structure can be used to tune the frequency of the RL maximum peak.

The use of enterosorbents—materials which can be administered orally and eliminate toxic substances from the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) by sorption—offers an attractive complementary protection of humans against acute and chronic poisoning. In this study, we report the results of developing a microgranulated binary biomedical preparation for oral use. It was designed with a core-shell structure based on pectin with low degree of esterification as the core, and nanoporous activated carbon produced from rice husk, AC-RH, as the shell, designated as AC-RH@pectin. The adsorption properties of the synthesized materials were studied in aqueous solutions for the removal of lead (II) nitrate as a representative of toxic polyvalent metals and sodium diclofenac as an example of a medicinal drug. The composite enterosorbent demonstrated high adsorption capacity for both adsorbates studied. Adsorption kinetics of lead and diclofenac adsorption by AC-RH, pectin, and AC-RH@pectin, fitted well a pseudo-second-order model. According to the Langmuir adsorption isotherm model, the best fitted isotherm model, the maximum adsorption capacity, qmax, of AC-RH@pectin for diclofenac and for lead (II) was 130.9 mg/g and 227.8 mg/g, respectively. Although qmax of AC-RH for diclofenac, 537.6 mg/g, and qmax of pectin for lead (II), 245.7 mg/g, were higher, the maximum adsorption capacity of AC-RH for lead (II), 52.7 mg/g, was much lower than that of the composite AC-RH@pectin and the adsorption capacity of pectin for diclofenac was negligible. Therefore, the composite material AC-RH@pectin demonstrated substantial efficiency of removing both species which potentially defines it as a more universal enterosorbent suitable for treating poisoning caused by substances of different chemical nature.