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

Characterization of the surface of activated carbons produced from tire residues

The surface characterisation of new activated carbons produced from tire residues by activation with carbon dioxide was studied. The activated carbons produced were mainly basic with point of zero charge values above 8.8. The main surface functional groups identified by FTIR were ether, quinones, lactones, ketones, hydroxyls (free and phenol) and pyrones. The XRD analysis shows that the materials produced have a microstructural organisation with microcrystallite height around 1.5nm and width from 3 to 5.3nm. This analysis indicates also the possible presence of oxides (single or mixture) of the following heteroatoms: Fe, Al, Ca, Mg, Ti, Si, K, Pb, Cd, Ba, Zn and Sn. The results have shown the significant potential of this type of residues for activated carbon production. Furthermore, the environment friendly use of an industrial residue is also noteworthy

Activated carbons with high nitrogen content by a combination of hydrothermal carbonization with activation

The work was funded by the FCT (Grants PEst-OE/QUI/UI0619/ 2011 and SFRH/BD/82696/2011) with National (OE) and European Union (FEDER, program COMPETE of QREN) funds