Highly adsorptive mesoporous carbon from biomass using molten-salt route

• Published in: Journal of materials science Vol. 51; no. 14; pp. 6793 - 6800
• Main Authors: Kong, Weixiao, Zhao, Feng, Guan, Huijuan, Zhao, Yafei, Zhang, Hongsong, Zhang, Bing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.07.2016; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Activated carbon; Adsorptivity; Biomass; Carbon; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Classical Mechanics; Crystallography and Scattering Methods; Functional groups; Materials Science; Methylene blue; Original Paper; Pine; Polymer Sciences; Precursors; Solid Mechanics; Surface chemistry; Wood chips; Zinc chloride; Methylene Blue; Adsorption Capacity; Activate Carbon; Porous Carbon; Banana Peel
• ISSN: 0022-2461; 1573-4803
• DOI: 10.1007/s10853-016-9966-8

A general, simple, eco-friendly, and scalable route of obtaining highly adsorptive activated carbon from biomass using ZnCl₂ molten-salt process is reported. Upon using three biomasses (pine wood chips, banana peels, and pine leaves) as the model carbon precursors, the molten-salt process yields different porous structures of carbons with a specific surface area up to 1624.8 m² g⁻¹. The properties of the three obtained activated carbons were characterized by SEM, TEM, XRD, FT-IR, and BET. The results show that all of them are amorphous with oxygen-containing functional groups on the surface. Besides, they exhibit remarkable adsorption capacity for removal of methylene blue of 425, 225, and 300 mg g⁻¹, respectively. Since various biomasses can be transformed into activated carbons, molten-salt route is proved general and feasible, which offers a simple and environmentally sound way for transforming low-cost and abundant biomass to highly adsorptive and valuable activated carbon. This method also opens up a new avenue toward the application of biomass in various fields.