Activation of Asphalt to Prepare High Surface Area Carbon Material

Abstract

High surface area porous carbon material was prepared via a method of activating asphalt with pretreatment. The crystalline, textural structure, morphology, and surface functionalities of the samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), diffuse reflectance FTIR spectroscopy (DRIFTS), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) techniques. When the asphalt was pretreated at 400 °C for 3 h under Ar flow, and then activated using KOH as activating agent at 800 °C for 3 h under Ar flow, the prepared porous carbon material has an amorphous nature and possesses a high surface area of 2460 m2/g, a narrow pore size distribution of 3 ∼ 5 nm, and a mean pore diameter of 3.8 nm.