A pyrolysis product derived from SASOL-Lurgi gasifier pitch was activated using different proportions of KOH. The increase of the amount of KOH used for activation caused the activation degree of the carbons to increase very significantly. The activated carbons obtained using lower amounts of KOH were mainly microporous, while the amount of mesopores developed in the samples progressively incre...

The preparation of activated carbons from bean pods waste by chemical (K(2)CO(3)) and physical (water vapor) activation was investigated. The carbon prepared by chemical activation presented a more developed porous structure (surface area 1580 m(2) g(-1) and pore volume 0.809 cm(3) g(-1)) than the one obtained by water vapor activation (258 m(2) g(-1) and 0.206 cm(3) g(-1)). These carbons were ...

The present paper shows that the performance of an inexpensive activated carbon used in electrochemical capacitors can be significantly enhanced by a simple treatment with KOH at 850oC. The changes in the specific surface area, as well as in the surface chemistry, lead to high capacitance values, which provide a noticeable energy density. The KOH-treatment of a commercial activated carbon leads...

The precise atomic structure of activated carbon is unknown, despite its huge commercial importance in the purification of air and water. Diffraction methods have been extensively applied to the study of microporous carbons, but cannot provide an unequivocal identification of their structure. Here we show that the structure of a commercial activated carbon can be imaged directly using aberratio...

In this work, the CO2 capture capacity of a series of activated carbons derived from recycled polyethylene terephtalate (PET) was tested, facing two problems at the same time: minimising plastic waste and developing an adsorbent for CO2 capture. The PET raw material, obtained from post-consumer soft-drink bottles, was chemically activated with KOH. In addition, a series of nitrogen-enriched act...

The regeneration of activated carbons used for the decontamination of water and wastewater polluted with organic compounds related to the pharmaceutical industry, has been studied in this work. To this end, the pyrolysis of exhausted activated carbons was performed in a quartz reactor. The influence of the pyrolysis of saturated activated carbons on their adsorptive capacities and porous struct...

Activated carbons obtained from cane sugar bagasse (ACB), African palm pit (ACP) and sawdust (ACS) were prepared through an impregnated with HNO3 and thermal treatment in an atmosphere in N2/steam water at 1173 K. Adsorption isotherms of N2 at 77 K and of CO2 at 273 K were determined for the activated carbons for which surface area and pore volume values were from 868 to 1100 mg and from 0.27 t...

Adsorbed natural gas (ANG) by Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) has been widely investigated as an alternative to CNG and LNG technologies for storage and transportation of natural gas. In the present work, a theoretical and experimental study was conducted to accurately determine the amount of adsorption of CH4 by GAC. To carry out the experiments, the volumetric method was used up to 4 MPa at c...

Catalytic Wet Oxidation is a promising treatment for wastewater containing refractory compounds, such as phenol. Activated carbon has demonstrated to perform as catalyst in wet oxidation, however it is not fully understood its role as catalyst. This study aims to clarify the effect of metal content, specifically iron and calcium, on the performance of a commercial activated carbon. Several modi...

Grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations (GCMC) are carried out to investigate the separation of hydrogen and carbon dioxide via adsorption in activated carbons. In the simulations, both hydrogen and carbon dioxide molecules are modeled as Lennard-Jones spheres, and the activated carbons are represented by a slit-pore model. At elevated temperatures (T = 505 and 923 K), the activated carbons exh...