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Phenolic Based Porous Carbon Fibers with Superior Surface Area and Adsorption Efficiency for Radioactive Protection

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Abstract

Radioactive iodine element mainly in CH3I is a key fission product of concern in the nuclear fuel cycle, which directly threatens human health if released into the environment. Effective capture of the I element is essential for human health protection. The iodine filter, consisting of an activated carbon inner core and cotton filter, is the most common radioactive iodine protection product. Currently, the activated carbon inside the iodine filter suffers from the weak adsorption efficiency and high cost. Herein, a process based on a strong alkali activation method was developed to significantly improve iodine absorption and reduce the cost. A series of flexible porous carbon fibers with a high specific surface area (up to about 1,500 ~ 2,200 m2/g) were prepared by carbonation of the phenolic resin fibers (PF, prepared through melt spinning and crosslink) followed by activation via KOH treatment. Meanwhile, the nitrogen-doped sp2-heterogeneous carbon atoms were prepared by adding nitrogen sources such as urea which led to a high surface area nano-porous fibers with an average pore size of ~ 2.4 nm. The nitrogen-doped porous carbon fibers exhibit very high adsorption for liquid iodine and iodine vapor. The liquid iodine adsorption capacity of nitrogen-doped porous carbon NDAC-4 prepared under 800 °C reaches 2,120 mg/g, which is 2.1 times higher than that of the commercial iodine filter, and for iodine vapor the capacity can reach 5,330 mg/g. Meanwhile, the CH3I adsorption capacity is 510 mg/g, which is 3.4 times higher than that of commercial unmodified viscose fibers and has greater stability and circularity. Importantly, the research has met the requirements of industrial production, and the fabrication of phenolic-fibers-based protection equipment can be widely used in the nuclear radiation industry.

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The datasets generated during and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support from Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2019B010941001), Science and Technology Program of Shenzhen (JSGG20200924171000001), the Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Committee (no. JCYJ20200109140812302), 2019 Dong guan Postgraduate Joint Training (Practice) Workstation Project (Grant No. 2019707126017), Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province (2017ZT07Z479) and Atomic-resolution high-angle annular darkfield (HAADF)-scanning TEM (STEM) was carried out on microscope Titan Themis G2 60–300 maintained by Southern University of Science and Technology Core Research facilities.

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  1. Yufei Gao, Ying Huo, and Mingyi Chen have been contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Yufei Gao, Ying Huo, Jian Zhu, Yuan Zeng, Zesheng Li & Hsing-Lin Wang

  2. School of Textiles Science and Engineering, Tiangong University of Technology, Tianjin, 300384, China

    Mingyi Chen, Liang Wang & Jie Fan

  3. China Nuclear Power Technology Research Institute Co. Ltd, Shenzhen, 518028, China

    Xingdong Su, Jie Zhan & Feng Liu

  4. Institute of Frontier and Intersectional Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Rouxi Chen

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  1. Yufei Gao
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Gao, Y., Huo, Y., Chen, M. et al. Phenolic Based Porous Carbon Fibers with Superior Surface Area and Adsorption Efficiency for Radioactive Protection. Adv. Fiber Mater. 5, 1431–1446 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42765-023-00284-6

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