A Study of Surface Modification on Adsorption Behaviors of Nanoporous Carbon

In this work, to introduce polar functional groups on carbon surfaces, activated carbon fibers (ACFs) were treated by nitric acid in order to enhance the adsorption capacity of propylamine which was one of toxic gases in cigarette smoke. It was found that the polar functional groups were predominantly increased up to 2.0 M of nitric acid, resulting in the increase of total surface acidity. It was found that the adsorption amount of propylamine of the modified ACFs was increased around 17% after a nitric acid treatment. From the XPS results, it was observed that propylamine was reacted with strong or weak polar (acidic) groups, such as COOH, -COO or OH existed on the ACF surfaces.