Fluorine (F) recovery from wet process phosphoric acid (WPA) is essential for sustainable resource utilization and environmental protection. This work systematically investigates the F recovery mechanism by air stripping from three simulated systems: H3PO4- H2SiF6-H2O, H3PO4- HF-H2O, H3PO4- H2SiF6-HF-Al3+-H2O, and from two industrial systems: WPA and WPA-Al3+ under different stripping temperatures (60–110 ℃) and stripping times (0–120 min). The influence on the existence form of F, the content of Al3+ cations and the addition of active silica on the F removal rate in the phosphoric acid solution is studied by analyzing the changes in the contents of F, P and Si. The results indicate that the F in the form of H2SiF6 is more easily released from the phosphoric acid solution than that in the form of HF. While, the release of F is inhibited in the presence of the Al3+ in the solution due to the formation of Al-F complexes that are characterized by 19F NMR, 31Si NMR and FTIR techniques. Interestingly, the addition of active silica can promote the conversion of HF to H2SiF6 in the solution and significantly improve the release rate of F. The researching results can provide an important guidance for industrial practice of WPA.

To meet the increased performance and cost requirements of commercial supercapacitor, a N and O self-doped hierarchical porous carbon is fabricated via a green and simple self-activation route utilizing leaves of wild hollyhock as raw materials. Comparing to commercial activated carbon, the reported material exhibits some marked merits, such as simple and green fabrication process, low cost, and superior capacitance performance. The specific surface area of the obtained N and O codoped hierarchical porous carbon arrives 954 m2 g−1, and the content of the self-doped nitrogen and oxygen reaches 2.64 at.% and 7.38 at.%, respectively. The specific capacitance of the obtained material reaches 226 F g− 1 while the specific capacitance of the symmetric supercapacitor arrives 47.3 F g− 1. Meanwhile, more than 90.3% of initial specific capacitance is kept under a current density of 20 A g− 1, and no arresting degradation is observed for capacitance after 5000 times cycle, perfectly demonstrating the excellent cycle and rate capability of the obtained material. The obtained N and O co-doped hierarchical porous carbon are expected to be an ideal substitution for commercial activated carbon.