Surface and porous characterisation of activated carbons made from a novelbiomass precursor, the esparto grass

In the work now reported the production of activated carbons from a novel precursor, esparto grass, by activation with carbon dioxide is presented. The results show that the materials produced have interesting properties, namely BET apparent surface area and pore volume up to 1122 m(2) g(-1) and 0.46 cm(3) g(-1), respectively. The activated carbons have basic characteristics with point of zero charge between 9.25 and 10.27 and show a very fascinating structure, as shown by the SEM images. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.The authors are grateful to the Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (Portugal) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors (COMPETE) and QREN for financial support through Project PTDC/CTM/66552/2006 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-007142) and under the Strategic Project PEst-OE/QUI/UI0619/2011 (CQE/UE).Valente Nabais, J.; Laginhas, C.; Ribeiro Carrott, MML.; Carrott, PJM.; Crespo Amorós, JE.; Nadal Gisbert, AV. (2013). Surface and porous characterisation of activated carbons made from a novelbiomass precursor, the esparto grass. Applied Surface Science. 265:919-924. doi:10.1016/j.apsusc.2012.11.164S91992426

Quantitative Characterization of Multicomponent Polymers by Sample-Controlled Thermal Analysis

This paper explores the potential of sample-controlled thermal analysis (SCTA) in order to perform compositional analysis of multicomponent polymeric materials by means of thermogravimetric experiments. In SCTA experiments, the response of the sample to the temperature determines the evolution of the temperature by means of a feedback system; thus, what is controlled is not the temperature-time profile, as in conventional analysis, but rather the evolution of the reaction rate with time. The higher resolving power provided by the technique has been used for determining the composition of polymer blends composed of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and different commercial plasticizers, a system where the individual components have very similar thermal stabilities, thereby rendering useless thermogravimetric experiments run under conventional conditions. Different SCTA procedures, such as constant rate thermal analysis (CRTA), which has received special attention, and high-resolution and stepwise isothermal analysis have been tested, and the results obtained have been compared with linear heating rate technique. It has been proven that CRTA can be used to effectively determine the exact composition of the blend. © 2010 American Chemical Society.Peer Reviewe