Studies on the structure of activated carbon fibers activated by phosphoric acid

Abstract By solid‐state 13C‐ and 31P‐NMR, XPS, and FTIR, the chemical structure of activated carbon fiber–P (ACF‐P) and its reaction with phosphoric acid were studied. Even when activated at low temperatures, these fibers developed a graphitelike carbon structure with a certain amount of phenol groups as well as acetal (or methylenedioxy) carbon. As expected, the oxygen‐containing groups were greatly reduced at high activation temperatures. Different from the ACF‐W, metaphosphoric acid (or polyphosphates) and a small amount of phosphorus exist on ACF‐P. The original ACF‐P activated at low temperature contained a lot of phosphoric acid, so it had to be washed with water to expose the large surface area. The washing process can be omitted for ACF‐P activated at high temperature because most phosphorus compounds in fiber have volatilized. The ACF‐P activated at lower temperature possessed a large amount of oxygen‐containing surface groups and had enhanced adsorption ability for polar adsorbates. The remaining of metaphosphoric acid enhanced the adsorption of silver ion. The experimental results showed that the peaks of 31P‐NMR, P2p‐XPS, and FTIR at 1620 cm−1 shifted with the increase of activated temperature. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 87: 2253–2261, 2003