The effect of temperature on the mesopore development in commercial activated carbon by steam activation in the presence of yttrium and cerium oxides

Mesopore carbon was prepared from commercial activated carbon by catalytic steam activation over yttrium and cerium oxides from 680 to 870 °C. The pore structures were determined by adsorption and desorption of nitrogen isotherms at 77 K. XRD and TEM were used to monitor the metal oxides changing after activation. It was found that the steam activation process with catalysts was composed of parallel catalytic and non-catalytic reactions and their contributions depended on the activation temperatures. At low temperatures (680 and 740 °C), the catalytic activation over metal oxides played a dominant role in developing mesopores; while the catalytic activation could not promote the mesopore development above 800 °C due to the aggregation of metal oxide particles, and the non-catalytic activation took the advantage of pore developing. The mesoporous carbons showed high adsorption capacity of Congo red and VB12.