Elaboration and Pore Size Control of Macro Porous Carbonized Material by Pyrolysis of Resin/Carbon Composite

Abstract

Our purpose aims to introduce a contribution to the water filtration field with a potentially low cost carbon membrane. Porous carbonized material were prepared with predefined porosity of 0.1µm to be used as a support for nanofiltration and microfiltration membranes A composite material has been prepared by incorporation of activated carbon powder in a thermosetting resin, which underwent later a heat treatment under nitrogen atmosphere. The size of pores forming in the solids were controlled by varying different parameters such as pyrolysis temperature , pore forming agent added, carbon particle size and the resin matrix type. The results showed, that the homogenization of the resin/carbon composite pore size after pyrolysis was significantly related to activated carbon grain size. However, Pyrolysis temperature, pore forming agent content , thermosetting resin type were shown also to influence pore size of pyrolyzed material but play no role in pore size homogenization. It is important to mention here that pores size of carbonaceous material synthesized from epoxy resin is smaller than that synthesized from phenolic resin for the same particle size of activated carbon powder. Mechanical tests (3 point bending) and pore size measurements of 0.1 µm support have revealed that the flexural strength and porosity levels of 0.1 um supports based on epoxy resins are higher than their counterparts based on phenolic ones ( flexural strength of 71.62 MPa against 59.12MPa and porosity level of 29% against 21%).