The carbon aerogels doped with nickel were produced by sol-gel, supercritical ethanol drying, and high-temperature carbonization, using resorcinol-furfural as carbon source, nickel nitrate as nickel source, absolute ethanol as dispersion medium, 1,2-epoxypropane as gel initiator, polyacrylic acid as the chelating agent. The carbon aerogels were characterized by nitrogen adsorption and XRD. The effects of the molar ratio of 1,2-epoxypropane to nickel on porosity of the Ni-doped carbon aerogels were investigated. It is found that the Ni-doped carbon aerogels have abundant mesopores and the doped nickel is dispersed in samples in metallic state and oxide or pure metal depending on the preparation conditions. The mesopore volume and average mesopore size all increase with the ratio of 1,2-epoxypropane to nickel.

Four activated carbons (ACs) with different properties were heat-treated at 600 °Cfor 3 h and the ACs before and after the treatment were characterized by nitrogen adsorption and XPS. The relationship between pore texture, surface chemistry and dibenzothiophene adsorption capacity was investigated. It is found that pore volume for the pore below 1nm and between 1.1-1.6 nm decreases and increases respectively, and mesopore volume increases after the heat treatment. The Brunauer- Emmett-Teller (BET) surface areas of the four samples remain almost the same after the treatment. The surface oxygen content decreases after the treatment. The adsorption isotherms can be better fitted by Freundlich equation than Langmuir equation, indicating that the adsorption sites on surface of the ACs is inhomogeneous. The dibenzothiophene adsorption capacity has a linear relationship with the pore volume of the pores in the range of 0.536-1.179 nm, indicating that micropore filling of dibenzothiophene is the dominant mechanism for dibenzothiophene adsorption. The adsorption capacity of dibenzothiophene for the pristine ACs is larger than that of the heat-treated ACs under the same pore volume for the pores in the range of 0.536-1.179 nm, indicating that surface oxygen functional groups favors the adsorption for dibenzothiophene.

Cu-doped carbon aerogels were prepared by the sol-gel polymerization of resorcinol with formaldehyde in aqueous solution to produce organic gels that are supercritically dried in n-hexane and subsequently pyrolyzed in an inert atmosphere, using sodium carbonate as catalyst and copper acetate as copper source. The addition amount of the copper acetate in the initial reaction mixture has a profound effect on the surface morphology and pore texture of the resulting aerogel. It is shown that the introduction of copper lead to generation of ultrafine micropores. The desulfurization performance of the as-obtained carbon aerogels was evaluated by selective adsorption of dibenzothiophene (DBT) as a model sulfur compound and benzene as a competitive aromatic compound. It is found that the adsorption capacity for DBT is related to the volume of micropores. And the selectivity is improved with the increase of copper content, indicating the presence of copper is favorable to DBT retention on the surface via its π-complexation effect.