Synthesis of hollow porous carbon nanospheres from coal tar for adsorption of Direct Black 38 dye

A hollow porous carbon nanospheres (HPCNs) material which suits for adsorption of Direct Black 38 (DB38) was prepared from coal tar using zinc acetate as a template coupled with KOH activation. The synthesized HPCNs features with nanospheres structure and contains both micropores and a lot of mesopores. The HPCN_1?4?2 made with the mass weight ratio of coal tar/zinc acetate/KOH at 1:4:2 shows a large surface area of 1374 m² g^?1 with an average pore size of 7.41 nm. The HPCN_1?4?2 exhibits excellent adsorption capacity for DB38 dye, which has big molecular size at room temperature. This is mainly due to its large surface area and pore volumes contributed by its mesopores. This work suggests an effective way to synthesize a high performance adsorbent for large molecular size dyes from low-cost coal tar.