Porous carbon materials for adsorption: a mini-review

Porous carbon materials have attracted considerable interest and show great potential for various applications because of their remarkable properties, including high specific surface area, unique porous structures, mass transport, easily accessible active sites, controllable surface chemistry, etc. Owing to these properties, porous carbons can be employed in environmental remediation as adsorbents for eliminating pollutants such as carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and oil and heavy metal ions from aquatic ecosystems. In this minireview, we grouped porous carbons into three main parts based on their dimensions, and the recent progress in porous carbon application as adsorbents for environmental remediation, including oil-water separation, CO2 capture, and heavy metal ion removal, are discussed according to their dimensions.