Abstract: A mesoporous activated carbon (AC) can be successfully prepared by catalytic activa-tion with carbon dioxide. For iron oxide as catalyst, there were two regions of mesoporesize distribution, i.e. 2-5nm and 30-70nm. When copper oxide or magnesium oxidecoexisted with iron oxide as composite catalyst, the content of pores with sizes of 2-5nm was decreased, while the pores with 30 70nm were increased significantly. Forcomparison, AC reactivated by carbon dioxide directly was also investigated. It wasshown that the size of mesopores of the resulting AC concentrated in 2-5nm with lessvolume. The adsorption of Congo red was tested to evaluate the property of the result-ing AC. Furthermore, the factors affecting pore size distribution and the possibility ofmesopore formation were discussed.

Key words: activated carbon. mesopore, catalytic activation