Physical and Chemical Activation of Graphene-Derived Porous Nanomaterials for Post-Combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture

Rabita Mohd Firdaus,Mélanie Emo,Abdul Rahman Mohamed,Alexandre Desforges,Brigitte Vigolo

doi:10.3390/nano11092419

Abstract

Activation is commonly used to improve the surface and porosity of different kinds of carbon nanomaterials: activated carbon, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and carbon black. In this study, both physical and chemical activations are applied to graphene oxide by using CO2 and KOH-based approaches, respectively. The structural and the chemical properties of the prepared activated graphene are deeply characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectrometry and nitrogen adsorption. Temperature activation is shown to be a key parameter leading to enhanced CO2 adsorption capacity of the graphene oxide-based materials. The specific surface area is increased from 219.3 m2 g−1 for starting graphene oxide to 762.5 and 1060.5 m2 g−1 after physical and chemical activation, respectively. The performance of CO2 adsorption is gradually enhanced with the activation temperature for both approaches: for the best performances of a factor of 6.5 and 9 for physical and chemical activation, respectively. The measured CO2 capacities are of 27.2 mg g−1 and 38.9 mg g−1 for the physically and chemically activated graphene, respectively, at 25 °C and 1 bar.

Highlights

Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) from manufacturing plants and automobiles have caused severe environmental concerns
The results reveal that graphene oxide (GO) has the lowest SSA of 219.32 m2 g−1, whereas KOH activation at 800 ◦ C
In comparison to physical activation, this work demonstrates that chemical activation by KOH is more efficient for the development of high surface and porous graphenebased adsorbents

Summary

Introduction

Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) from manufacturing plants and automobiles have caused severe environmental concerns. The gradual rise in atmospheric CO2 from human activities and industry effluents necessitates research aimed toward carbon capture [2]. To date porous carbon materials including graphene offer a wide variety of chemical composition and structural architectures that are suitable for the adsorption and storage of different gas molecules including hydrogen [3], methane [4] and carbon dioxide [5] These materials display great promise in terms of the surface functional groups, for example, the self-organization, chemical stability, reactivity, etc., in adsorptive processes

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Discussion

Conclusion