Activated Carbon from Palm Date Seeds for CO2 Capture.

Amira Alazmi,Sabina A Nicolae,Pierpaolo Modugno,Pedro M F J Costa,Maria M Titirici,Bashir E Hasanov

doi:10.3390/ijerph182212142

Abstract

The process of carbon dioxide capture and storage is seen as a critical strategy to mitigate the so-called greenhouse effect and the planetary climate changes associated with it. In this study, we investigated the CO2 adsorption capacity of various microporous carbon materials originating from palm date seeds (PDS) using green chemistry synthesis. The PDS was used as a precursor for the hydrochar and activated carbon (AC). Typically, by using the hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) process, we obtained a powder that was then subjected to an activation step using KOH, H3PO4 or CO2, thereby producing the activated HTC-PDS samples. Beyond their morphological and textural characteristics, we investigated the chemical composition and lattice ordering. Most PDS-derived powders have a high surface area (>1000 m2 g−1) and large micropore volume (>0.5 cm3 g−1). However, the defining characteristic for the maximal CO2 uptake (5.44 mmol g−1, by one of the alkaline activated samples) was the lattice restructuring that occurred. This work highlights the need to conduct structural and elemental analysis of carbon powders used as gas adsorbents and activated with chemicals that can produce graphite intercalation compounds.

Highlights

We investigate the performance of activated carbons derived from palm date seeds for CO2 capture
It is common that char activation is performed via a particular physical or chemical method
Presenting CO2 adsorption studies without contextualizing the carbonaceous synthesis path may lead to less-than-optimal sorbent performances

Summary

Introduction

In order to mitigate this issue, a number of strategies have been proposed, chief amongst which are CO2 capture technologies. Reversible gas adsorption (physisorption) is a mature field that relies on the appropriate selection of porous materials used as adsorbents to capture a particular gas [1,2,3,4,5]. In the case of CO2 , a number of physical adsorbents have been investigated, such as activated carbon [6,7], mesoporous silica [8], zeolites [7,9], metal–organic frameworks [10] and fly ash [11]. High-surface-area powders of porous carbons present a number of notable advantages. In addition to the ease of synthesis and regeneration, they show remarkable chemical and thermal stability [12]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion