Recycling precious metals like silver is crucial due to limited natural reserves, prompting the use of S-doped porous carbons (SPCs) derived from passion fruit shells for effective silver adsorption.
The synthesis process involved hydrothermal carbonization followed by activation, which increased mesopore content and introduced sulfur elements, enhancing silver adsorption performance.
The optimized SPC-3 demonstrated high silver adsorption capacity (115 mg/g) and strong selectivity, allowing for easy recovery of silver after adsorption through simple calcination.