Porous carbon nanofibers (PCNFs) were fabricated by stabilization, carbonization and activation with steam after electrospinning the polymer solution of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF). The nitrogen adsorption and desorption at 77K showed that PAN-based PCNFs are highly microporous. Removal of NO with PCNFs at room temperature was investigated. The ratio of NO removed by PCNFs is higher than 60% when the inlet NO concentration was 20 ppm with 0.10 g of sample, and NOx (NO + NO2) cannot be detected when the inlet NO concentration was 2 ppm within 24h. The mechanism sequence is supposed to be NO adsorption, catalytic oxidation to NO2 and part reduction to N-2 by PCNFs due to greater carbon surface area and a higher quantity of nitrogen species. Thus. PCNFs would be effective for purging low concentration NOx at room temperature. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.