Abstract
Porous carbon spheres were fabricated from sugarcane bagasse using a sustainable hydrothermal carbonization process followed by alkali impregnation inert atmosphere activation. Developed spheres were technically analysed for their chemical science, structural morphology, texture, porosity with respect to size distribution, and thermal degradation. Spheres are functionally enriched with oxygenated groups showing amorphous nature portraying as a smooth surface. After activation, intensity of functional groups is reduced due to reduction reaction by KOH thereby yielding highly rich porous carbon. The active surface area developed on spheres is 111 m2 g-1 holding pores that are mesoporous in nature. Resistance to thermal exposure using TGA showed that decomposition of hemicelluloses followed by cellulose yielded aromatized carbon-rich skeleton through thermal degradation of carboxyl and hydroxyl groups. Developed carbon was found to be effective in removing Ciprofloxacin Hydrochloride from water with maximum adsorption capacity of 110.008 mg g-1. Mechanistic removal followed pseudo-second-order kinetics along with Freundlich mode of adsorption. The presence of carboxylic and hydroxyl groups in porous carbon favoured elimination of CPF from water. The development of HTC-derived carbon helped conserving the energy thereby reducing the cost requirement.
Highlights
Generation of carbon spheres (CS) had attracted everyone’s side in the field of research as they find numerous applications as adsorbents, support for catalysts, energy conversion, and energy storage in lithium batteries
It could be observed that reduced O/ C and H/C values indirectly provide evidence for dehydration and decarboxylation reactions that could be dominating during the hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) process in yielding CS, thereby resulting in high aromaticity [19]
Agricultural crop residues could be employed as a constructive carbonaceous product through the HTC process which finds its application in removing pollutants from water and in other fields
Summary
Generation of carbon spheres (CS) had attracted everyone’s side in the field of research as they find numerous applications as adsorbents, support for catalysts, energy conversion, and energy storage in lithium batteries. The use of raw agricultural waste can reduce affecting the surrounding environment because one of the most common human activities is burning of farming residues like bagasse, wheat straw, barley waste, rice husk, and paddy which may increase the concentration level of air pollutants that are most commonly monitored by the public sector. An increase in these pollutants might induce respiratory diseases in human beings. Batch adsorption studies were performed at optimum condition for defining adsorption influencing parameters like pH, adsorbent dosage, and concentration of pollutant for identifying the adsorption kinetics and mechanistic removal between adsorbent and adsorbate
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