A General Silica-Templating Synthesis of Alkaline Mesoporous Carbon Catalysts for Highly Efficient H₂S Oxidation at...

A general synthesis of alkaline mesoporous carbons (AMCs) is developed based on a simplified silica-templating method for room-temperature catalytic oxidation of H₂S. The key to the success relies on dissolving the silica templates to create the interconnected mesoporous structure as well as leaving parts of the alkaline products in the pores; both of them are prerequisites for H₂S oxidation. By adjusting the alkaline etching degree and organic/inorganic ratio, the porosity and basicity of the AMC could be simultaneously tuned, allowing the AMCs direct use for H₂S catalytic oxidation with an unprecedented removal capacities of 4.49 ± 0.12 g/g. Such excellent catalytic performance should be attributed to the developed pore structure that stores the product sulfur and the strong basicity that promotes the dissociation of H₂S into HS^- ions. Moreover, this simplified silica-templating method could be easily extended to the preparation of various silica templated mesoporous carbon catalysts. All these AMCs demonstrate a successful combination of low cost with high performance, which may well be the answer for the technical development of industrial H₂S removal.