Chemical Engineering Communications

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Porous carbonaceous materials from

hydrothermal carbonization and KOH activation of
corn stover for highly efficient CO2 capture

Feng Shen, Yu Wang, Luyang Li, Keqiang Zhang, Richard L. Smith & Xinhua Qi

To cite this article: Feng Shen, Yu Wang, Luyang Li, Keqiang Zhang, Richard L. Smith & Xinhua
Qi (2018) Porous carbonaceous materials from hydrothermal carbonization and KOH activation
of corn stover for highly efficient CO2 capture, Chemical Engineering Communications, 205:4,
423-431, DOI: 10.1080/00986445.2017.1367671

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00986445.2017.1367671

View supplementary material Published online: 08 Feb 2018.

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CHEMICAL ENGINEERING COMMUNICATIONS
2018, VOL. 205, NO. 4, 423–431
https://doi.org/10.1080/00986445.2017.1367671

none defined

Porous carbonaceous materials from hydrothermal carbonization and KOH

activation of corn stover for highly efficient CO2 capture
Feng Shena, Yu Wanga,b, Luyang Lia,b, Keqiang Zhanga, Richard L. Smithc, and Xinhua Qia
a
Agro-Environmental Protection Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Tianjin, China; bCollege of Environmental Science and
Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, China; cResearch Center of Supercritical Fluid Technology, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Sustainable biomass-derived carbon materials were produced by hydrothermal carbonization of Activated carbon;
corn stover that was followed by chemical activation with KOH. The prepared carbon materials agricultural waste; biomass;
were used for CO2 adsorption and had a CO2 uptake of 7.14 mmol/g at a pressure of 1 bar and at CO2 capture; corn stover;
hydrothermal carbonization
0°C that was much higher than CO2 uptake by activated carbon that was prepared from direct
activation of corn stover (2.78 mmol/g). The porous corn stover-derived carbonaceous material had
high surface area (2442 m2/g) and large pore volume (1.55 cm3/g). Product yields obtained by the
activation of hydrothermally carbonized corn stover were significantly higher than those obtained
by the direct activation of corn stover (36–75 vs. 8%). The prepared corn stover-derived porous
carbon had a high CO2/N2 selectivity of 15.5 and exhibited constant CO2 uptake for five successive
reuse cycles. The hydrothermal carbonization step plays an important role for producing porous
carbons from biomass that have high and specific adsorption properties.

Introduction consumption for regeneration, and they are safe

and nontoxic.
Carbon capture will become a vital technology in
Numerous kinds of precursors such as coal,
the near-future as society shifts from carbon-based
petroleum coke, and charcoal have been applied
energy to carbon-free energies. Great efforts have
to prepare porous carbons. Compared with these
been made to exploit CO2 capture and storage
conventional precursors, biomass is a more suitable
processes that rely on absorption (Yu et al., 2015;
feedstock in terms of cost, availability, and its
ZareNezhad, 2016, p. 4), adsorption (Wei et al.,
renewability (David and Kopac, 2014; Deng et al.,
2012), or membrane separation (Park et al.,
2015). Various biomass feedstocks such as coconut
2015). The absorption of CO2 with alkanoamine
shells (Yang et al., 2015), peanut shells (Lin et al.,
solvents is presently the most widely used method
2015), bamboo (Wei et al., 2012), and empty fruit
for CO2 capture (Oh et al., 2016); however, it has
bunch (Parshetti et al., 2015) have been applied
problematic issues related to equipment corrosion,
as carbon precursors to produce porous carbons
energy consumption, and solvent toxicity. Adsorp-
for CO2 sorption, by either direct chemical
tion of CO2 using solid adsorbents is a promising
activation with KOH or by physical activation with
alternative for CO2 capture, since there are many
CO2 as the activation agent. However, these
adsorbents that can be used such as porous carbons
methods have some disadvantages such as waste
(Gibson et al., 2015; Hong et al., 2016), zeolites
stream emission and low carbon yield. On the
(Jiang et al., 2013), and metal organic frameworks
other hand, hydrothermal carbonization adopted
(Cho et al., 2012; Rada et al., 2015). Among the
for precarbonization of biomass following with
many types of adsorbents, porous carbons for
KOH activation allows efficient preparation of
CO2 capture are advantageous because they are
porous carbons (Sevilla et al., 2014a; Titirici et al.,
robust, they have high specific surface area,
2012). For example, Sevilla et al. used glucose as
variable pore structure, hydrophobicity, low energy

CONTACT Xinhua Qi qixinhua@nankai.edu.cn Agro-Environmental Protection Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, No. 31, Fukang
Road, Nankai District, Tianjin 300191, China.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/gcec.
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.
© 2018 Taylor & Francis
424 F. SHEN ET AL.
a raw material and prepared activated carbon by
hydrothermal treatment and KOH post-treatment
to obtain materials for electrodes’ supercapacitors
(Sevilla et al., 2014b).
Corn stover (CS) is a widely distributed agricul-
tural waste that mainly consists of organic cellu-
lose, hemicellulose, lignin, and inorganics (Yan
et al., 2014), and as an underused by-product, it
is a promising precursor to produce porous carbon
at low cost. In this work, corn stovers were treated
under hydrothermal conditions and post-treated
with KOH for activation. The obtained corn
stover-derived porous carbons had high micropor-
osity and had favorable CO2 adsorption character-
istics. The objectives of this research were to
evaluate conditions for preparing corn stover
porous carbons and to assess the materials for
CO2 capture and regeneration. Evaluation of the
selectivity of materials for CO2/N2 gas mixture
was also studied, since CO2 often has to be
removed from gas streams that contain air.
Methods
Materials
Corn stover material was collected from a local
farm in Tianjin, China. Samples were crushed to
pass a 180-mesh sieve and sun-dried before use.
Potassium hydroxide (analytic grade) and ethanol
(analytic grade) were provided by Guangfu fine
chemicals research institute (Tianjin, China).
Preparation of corn stover-derived porous
carbon
The corn stover-derived porous carbon was
prepared in two steps. First, hydrothermal treat-
ment was applied to give hydrochar material
(HC). Raw corn stover (12 g) was dispersed in
60 mL of water and was loaded into a Telfon-lined
stainless steel autoclave (100 mL), and hydrother-
mally treated at 250°C for 10 h at the autogenous
pressure. After the reaction, the autoclave was
cooled with ice water rapidly within several
minutes. The resulting solid product was separated
with centrifuge and was subjected to washing
several times with ultrapure water and ethanol.
The washed solids were dried in an oven at 80°C.
Second, the as-prepared HC material was chemi-
cally activated with KOH by thoroughly mixing the
HC material with KOH at a given mass ratio and
heated in a horizontal tubular furnace (OTF-
1200X, Hefei Kejing Materials Technology Co.
Ltd) to the target temperature under a nitrogen
gas flow atmosphere for different times. In general,
for the synthesis of porous carbonaceous materials
by KOH activation method, the ratio of KOH/
biomass, activation temperature, and time are the
most important parameters influencing the porous
structure of the carbonaceous materials. In this
work, the ratio of KOH: corn stover, activation
temperature, and time were optimized with
1:1–4:1, 600–900°C, and 1–4 h, respectively. The
resulting solid material was washed with 1M HCl
solution and ultrapure water several times until
the filtrate became neutral in pH, and then the
obtained wet solid was dried at 80°C overnight.
The final obtained corn stover-derived porous
carbons were denoted as ACx-y-z, where x, y,
and z represent the activation temperature (°C),
the weight ratio of KOH/HC, and the activation
time (h), respectively.
Direct activation of corn stover consists of the
above steps without hydrothermal carbonization.
Corn stover was directly mixed with KOH at a
mass ratio of 2:1 (KOH:CS) and heated under a
nitrogen gas flow atmosphere at 800°C for 2 h,
and the activated carbon obtained (CS800-2-2).
Product yield of the obtained porous carbon was
calculated by the following Eq. (1):
Yieldð%Þ ¼
Weight of the productðgÞ
� 100
Weight of the initial corn stoverðgÞ
ð1Þ
Characterization
The surface morphology of the corn stover-derived
porous carbon was characterized with scanning
electron microscopy (SEM) using a HITACHI
S4800 microscope. Nitrogen sorption isotherms
of the AC materials were measured at 196°C
using a 3FLEX apparatus (Micromeritics Instru-
ment Corp., USA) and analyses were made to char-
acterize the surface properties and pore sizes.
Before measurements, each sample was degassed

under vacuum at 200°C for 5 h. Elemental analysis
(CHN) was conducted on a dry basis using
elemental analyzer (Elementar Analysensysteme
GmbH, Germany).
CO2 adsorption–desorption experiments
CO2 adsorption–desorption experiments were
performed at 0.01–1 bar using static gas adsorption
(3FLEX apparatus, Micromeritics Instrument
Corp., USA) at 0°C. Selectivity of the prepared
porous carbon for the gases was evaluated by the
ratio of adsorbed amounts of CO2 and N2 on a
molar basis at equilibrium at 0°C and 1 bar. After
adsorption equilibrium was achieved, the porous
carbons were regenerated at 0°C under vacuum
(<0.01 bar). A second adsorption was repeated at
0°C and 1 bar after regeneration. Five CO2
adsorption–desorption cycles were performed for
the most favorable corn stover-derived porous
carbon among those prepared (AC800-2-2) to
confirm regeneration and recycle characteristics.
Selectivity of the prepared porous carbon for the
gases was calculated by the ratio of adsorbed
amounts of CO2 and N2 on a molar basis at
Figure 1. SEM images of the (a) raw corn stovers, (b) hydrothermally treated hydrochar material (HC), (c) hydrothermally treated
KOH-activated porous carbon AC800-2-2, and (d) direct activated (nonhydrothermal treated) porous carbon CS800-2-2. Note: SEM,
scanning electron microscopy.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING COMMUNICATIONS 425
equilibrium at 0°C and 1 bar as shown in Eq. (2):
AðCO2 Þ
Sð%Þ ¼ � 100 ð2Þ
AðN2 Þ
where A(CO2) is the amount of CO2 adsorbed by
the material and A(N2) is the amount of N2
adsorbed by the material.
Results and discussion
Textural properties of the porous carbons
Variation in the morphology of corn stover porous
carbons before and after hydrothermal carboniza-
tion and chemical activation was observed by
SEM (Figure 1). The crude corn stovers were
mainly composed of rod-shaped fibers (Figure 1a),
while the SEM images of the HC samples obtained
from hydrothermal carbonization of the corn
stovers showed the presence of carbonaceous
microspheres that were probably derived from
the saccharide components in the corn stovers
along with the presence of irregular components
(Figure 1b). The HC samples had a brown color
that is typical for incomplete hydrothermal carbo-
nization products of biomass (Sevilla et al., 2014b).
426 F. SHEN ET AL.

transformed into honeycomb-like structures with

Figure 2. (a) N2 sorption–desorption isotherms and
(b) corresponding pore size distributions of porous carbons
AC800-2-2 and CS800-2-2.
After the HC samples were chemically activated
with KOH, the original morphology of the hydro-
char materials were completely destroyed and were
large conchoidal cavities. The activation of HC by
KOH typically causes morphology changes such
as those observed in Figure 1c (Chen et al.,
2012). For the CS800-2-2 sample that was prepared
from the direct activation of corn stover with
KOH at 800°C for 2 h, the material was composed
of relatively small particles with irregular
morphology (Figure 1d).
The textural properties of corn stover-derived
carbonaceous materials prepared under different
conditions were investigated by nitrogen physi-
sorption. The N2 adsorption isotherms and pore
size distribution (PSD) curves of the materials are
presented in Figure 2 and Figure S1. It can be seen
that for both of AC800-2-2 and CS800-2-2, the N2
uptake curves increased sharply at low relative
pressures (P/P0 < 0.05), and then a plateau was
reached, indicating the isotherms belong to type
I, and it is a typical characteristic of microporous
materials (Chen et al., 2012). This behavior was
confirmed with nonlocal density functional theory
PSD curves (Figure 2b), where three major peaks at
about 0.58, 0.76, and 1.2 nm can be observed. The
N2 adsorption isotherms and PSD curves for the
ACs that were prepared at different activation
conditions were similar (Figure S1).
The structural characteristics of the prepared
carbon materials under various conditions are
shown in Table 1, where it is apparent that all acti-
vation parameters, such as temperature, KOH/HC
ratio, and activation time affected the properties

Table 1. Structural characteristics, properties, elemental composition, CO2 uptake, and product yield of activated carbons
derived from corn stover according to preparation conditions of activation temperature, weight ratio of KOH to hydrochar
(KOH:HC), and activation time.
KOH/ Activation CO2 Product
Temperature HC time SBETa Smicro Vt b V0c V<0.7 nm C N H uptake yield
Sample (°C) ratio (h) (m /g) (m /g) (cm3/g)
2 2
(cm3/g) (cm3/g) (%) (%) (%) (mmol/g) (%)
CS – – – – – – – – 41.33 0.50 7.23 – –
HC – – – 11 – 0.04 – – 43.40 0.48 6.22 0.71 88
AC600-2-2 600 2 2 955 788 0.43 0.31 0.24 57.46 0.66 3.37 4.93 75
AC700-2-2 700 2 2 1539 1232 0.72 0.48 0.35 59.20 0.34 3.70 6.80 55
AC800-2-2 800 2 2 2442 2149 1.56 0.86 0.48 60.41 0.24 3.91 7.14 54
AC900-2-2 900 2 2 2225 1199 1.11 0.49 0.35 64.91 0.24 3.12 5.79 36
AC800-1-2 800 1 2 1543 1439 0.71 0.61 0.32 66.56 0.86 2.99 5.06 58
AC800-3-2 800 3 2 2201 1989 1.31 0.69 0.24 56.55 0.31 3.03 6.22 46
AC800-4-2 800 4 2 2170 1983 1.27 0.66 0.22 54.94 0.32 2.19 4.86 41
AC800-2-1 800 2 1 1630 1553 0.69 0.60 0.38 76.91 0.20 2.73 6.47 56
AC800-2-3 800 2 3 2132 1986 1.13 0.70 0.41 59.22 0.23 3.88 6.85 51
AC800-2-4 800 2 4 1862 1753 0.81 0.69 0.38 58.22 0.22 3.79 6.32 50
CS800-2-2 800 2 2 904 650 0.45 0.26 0.15 44.39 0.10 2.67 2.78 8
a
Surface area was calculated using the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller method at P/P0 ¼ 0.01–0.1.
b
Total pore volume at P/P0 ¼ 0.99.
c
Total micropore volume was calculated from N2 adsorption data by t-plot method.
 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING COMMUNICATIONS 427

of the prepared porous carbonaceous materials. CO2 capture capacity

The highest BET surface area sample was for
The preparation conditions shown in Table 1 had a
AC800-2-2 (2442 m2/g) that also had the highest
large effect on the properties of the porous carbons
total pore volume (1.56 cm3/g). For the corn
and thus the CO2 adsorption capacities should be
stover-derived porous carbon materials (Table 1),
different. To determine appropriate preparation
800°C, KOH/HC ratio of 2 and activation time of
parameters of the corn stover-derived porous car-
2 h were found to be the optimum activation
bons for CO2 adsorption, experiments using the
conditions among those examined in terms of
three parameters (activation temperature,
surface area and pore volume. With an increase
precursor/KOH ratio, and activation time) were
in activation temperature, KOH dosage, or
conducted (Figure 3 and Table 1). It shows that
activation time, the specific surface area of the
the activation temperature and KOH/HC ratio
materials began to decrease along with the enlarge-
had a large effect on the CO2 uptake onto the corn
ment of existing pores. By increasing the activation
stover-derived activated carbons, while the
temperature and time, the total microspores of the
activation time did not affect the adsorbed
resulting materials increased. This can be ascribed
amounts much.
to the fact that during the activation process, tarry
As shown in Figure 3a, when the KOH/HC ratio
matter, decomposition product, or disorganized
and activation time were fixed at 2 and 2 h,
carbon filled the pores and they can be expelled
respectively, the amount of CO2 adsorbed on the
in gaseous form with prolonging of the activation
porous carbons first increased with an increase in
temperature and time. While the too high tempera-
activation temperature from 600 to 800°C, and
ture and time lead to a decrease in micropore area
then decreased at 900°C. The maximum CO2
(Table 1). This is because the micropores were
uptake at 0°C was 7.14 mmol/g (Table 1) was
instable at high activation temperature or long
achieved for AC800-2-2 sample that was KOH
activation time, leading to collapse of microporous
activated at 800°C. The high adsorption capacity
structure and the destruction of micropores. The
of AC800-2-2 for CO2 is ascribed to its high surface
surface area of AC800-2-2 prepared by activation of
area, high total volume, and micropore volume. It
hydrothermally treated corn stover was much
has been reported that micropores, especially
higher than CS800-2-2 which was prepared by direct
narrow micropores less than 0.7 nm, play an
activation of corn stover without hydrothermal
important role in enhancing CO2 adsorption (Ello
treatment. The hydrothermal carbonization
et al., 2013a). Moreover, the presence of heteroa-
pretreatment of corn stover probably has a
toms, such as nitrogen, influences the CO2 adsorp-
homogenizing effect, which removes undesirable
tion performance (Jeon et al., 2015; Zhang et al.,
mineral matter from the carbonaceous material
2014). When the relationship between the struc-
(Falco et al., 2013; Lu et al., 2013).
tural properties and surface functional groups
The yields of the obtained carbon material
and CO2 adsorption was explored, it was found
products (Table 1) were different among the ACs
that not only the BET surface area and total pore
and CS samples. Product yields of 36–75% could
volume affect the CO2 uptake but also the narrow
be obtained for carbon materials produced from
micropore volume and nitrogen content (Table 1)
hydrothermal carbonization of corn stover follow-
are important. Among the four samples prepared
ing with KOH activation, which is significantly
at different temperatures, AC700-2-2, which had a
higher compared with those for the direct activation
comparable micropore surface area, total micro-
sample (CS800-2-2). Deoxygenation occurs in hydro-
pore volume, and narrow micropore volume as
thermal carbonization to form more highly aromatic
that of AC900-2-2, exhibited higher CO2 adsorption
structures (Sevilla et al., 2014b), so this is probably
capacity than AC900-2-2, which can be ascribed to
the reason that the hydrothermally treated corn
the higher nitrogen content of AC700-2-2 over that
stover materials had the highest yields (Table 1).
of AC900-2-2 (Table 1). Although both AC800-2-2
Therefore, hydrothermal carbonization of biomass
and AC900-2-2 had the same nitrogen content and
before chemical activation is very important for
similar surface area (Table 1), AC800-2-2 exhibited
obtaining high yields of porous carbons.
428 F. SHEN ET AL.
Figure 3. Comparison of CO2 adsorption isotherms at 0°C for (a) corn stover-derived activated carbons prepared at different
activation temperatures, (b) KOH/precursor ratio, (c) activation time, and (d) those among HC, AC800-2-2, and CS800-2-2 samples.
the highest CO2 capture capacity, because of its
high micropore volume and narrow micropore
volume. On the other hand, although AC600-2-2
had the highest nitrogen content among the four
samples, its least developed porosity probably leads
to its low CO2 capture capacity. Thus, both
physical and chemical properties seem to control
CO2 adsorption. When the microporous structure
is filled by CO2, van der Waals interactions
influence the adsorption, while the presence of
functional groups allows chemisorption to occur,
which is also one of the important factors that
affects CO2 adsorption (Arenillas et al., 2005).
Figure 3b shows the influence of activation agent
amount on the prepared porous carbons on CO2
adsorption. For an activation temperature and time
of 800°C and 2 h, respectively, the adsorption of
porous carbons for CO2 first increased but then
declined with an increase in applied KOH amount.
A 2:1 KOH:HC ratio was found to give the highest
CO2 uptake amount for the range of KOH:HC
ratios examined. Sevilla and Yang et al. reported
that activated carbon prepared from at a KOH:
HC ratio of 2 exhibited better adsorption capacity
than the other ratios (Sevilla and Fuertes, 2011;
Yang et al., 2015). Although AC800-1-2 had a lower
BET surface area, total pore volume, and even
micropore volume than AC800-4-2, its capacity for
CO2 adsorption was higher (Table 1), which can
probably be explained by its higher N content
and narrow micropore volume of less than
0.7 nm (Table 1).
The influence of activation time on CO2 adsorp-
tion was studied for an activation temperature of
800°C and a KOH/HC ratio of 2. Compared with
activation temperature and KOH/HC ratio, the
effect of activation time on CO2 adsorption
capacity was not strong (Figure 3c). When the
HC sample was chemically activated for 1 h, the
obtained AC800-2-1 sample exhibited a CO2 uptake
of 6.47 mmol/g. After the activation time was
extended to 2 h, the porous structure of the
carbonaceous material was thoroughly developed
to afford a high specific surface area, total pore,
and micropore volume (Table 1), which allowed
the AC800-2-2 sample to have the highest CO2
uptake among the materials. By prolonging the
activation time to 4 h, the surface area and
 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING COMMUNICATIONS 429

micropore volume of the obtained AC800-2-4 sam- activation is promising for applications in the field
ple began to decrease, and its adsorption capacity of CO2 adsorption.
for CO2 decreased to a comparable value as that
for the AC800-2-1 sample. Adsorption selectivity and sorbent
The hydrothermal carbonization product of regeneration
corn stover (HC) without KOH activation showed For practical capture of CO2, the adsorbent should
a CO2 uptake that was significantly lower than that have several characteristics, such as large CO2
of ACs samples with KOH activation, indicating adsorption capacity, robustness, and good selec-
that the activation processes could greatly enhance tivity against N2 molecules usually present in flue
the CO2 uptake. Thus, KOH activation of hydro- gas streams. The CO2/N2 selectivity was examined
char obtained by hydrothermal carbonization of by determining the adsorption isotherms of CO2
corn stovers can prepare microporous carbons and N2 for AC800-2-2 under the conditions of 0°C
and can significantly increase the adsorption and 1 bar pressure as shown in Figure 4. According
capacity for CO2. Moreover, as shown in to Figure 4, the adsorption isotherm of N2 was
Figure 3d, the hydrothermally treated and activated much lower than that of CO2. According to the
sample (AC800-2-2) had much greater CO2 uptake isotherms and the uptake ratio of CO2 to N2 at
than the direct activated material (CS800-2-2) adsorption equilibrium, the apparent CO2/N2
(Table 1), which should be ascribed to the greater selectivity at a pressure of 1 bar and at 0°C for
surface area, larger micropore volume, and higher AC800-2-2 was calculated to be 15.5. This selectivity
nitrogen content of AC800-2-2 compared with that was higher than those porous carbons prepared
of CS800-2-2. from petroleum pitch (Wahby et al., 2010), sawdust
Many researchers have reported on the (Sevilla and Fuertes, 2011), and bamboo (Wei et al.,
adsorption of CO2 for different activated carbons 2012), indicating that the prepared corn stover-
and other materials, as shown in Table 2. The derived porous carbon can be used to separate
porous carbons reported in this study showed CO2 from N2 efficiently. In general, the presence
higher CO2 uptakes than those reported for other of basic sites, such as nitrogen, was benefit for
biomass-derived carbons (Table 2). As corn stover the CO2 adsorption selectivity. However, the
is a cheap, abundant, and renewable material, corn content of N in the prepared adsorbent in this
stover-derived activated carbon from the hydro- work was low and it should have little contribution
thermal treating of corn stover followed by KOH to CO2 selectivity. Therefore, the high selectivity
herein can be attributed to the narrow micropores,
which has been reported by other works (Deng
Table 2. CO2 uptake (0°C and 1 bar) for different biomass- et al., 2015).
derived adsorbents and materials.
CO2 uptake
Materials (mmol/g) Reference
Corn stover derived activated 7.14 This study
carbon (AC800-2-2)
Nanoporous nitrogen-doped 6.75 (Bai et al.,
sorbent (UC-650-3) 2015)
Rice husk derived porous 6.24 (Li et al., 2015)
carbon (PC3-780)
Coconut shell-derived 5.60 (Ello et al.,
activated carbon 2013b)
Benzimidazole-linked polymer 5.34 (Rabbani and
(BILP-4) El-
Kaderi, 2012)
Palm fruit bunch-derived microporous 5.23 (Parshetti et al.,
carbons (H250-800) 2015)
Enteromorpha prolifera-based 2.40 (Zhang et al.,
carbon 2012)
Physically activated carbons 1.45 (Hao et al.,
2013)
Amino-functionalized mesoporous 1.35 (Cai et al., Figure 4. Adsorption isotherms of CO2 and N2 at 0°C for
alumina (PA-TEPA) 2014) AC800-2-2.
430 F. SHEN ET AL.
Figure 5. CO2 adsorption on AC800-2-2 at 0°C for five cycles
with vacuum regeneration.
Regeneration of spent adsorbents is another
significant factor in practical application for the
adsorption of CO2. Because the interaction
between CO2 and biomass-derived carbonaceous
adsorbents is generally weak, the adsorption
process needs low amounts of energy and the
regeneration step can expected to be relatively easy.
The regeneration of the prepared porous
carbon adsorbent was tested by adsorption (CO2
at 1 bar)–desorption (pressure <0.01 bar) cycles
performed at 0°C, as shown in Figure 5. It shows
that the adsorption isotherms of CO2 onto the
AC800-2-2 decreased about 7% after five successive
reuse cycles with low adsorption loss, implying that
the AC800-2-2 structure was highly stable and the
CO2 adsorption was reversible. Therefore, the
prepared corn stover-derived porous carbons
are good adsorbents for CO2, they provide high
CO2/N2 selectivity and they have good recyclability
characteristics.
Conclusion
Porous carbons were produced from hydrothermal
carbonization of corn stover following with KOH
activation, which exhibited much higher CO2
uptake than the activated carbon prepared by the
direct activation of corn stover with KOH. Product
yields of the prepared materials were significantly
higher than those by direct activation of corn
stover. The prepared corn stover-derived porous
carbon AC800-2-2 had a high CO2/N2 selectivity of
15.5 and exhibited good recycle characteristics.
This work provides a green and promising method
to produce high yields of biomass-derived porous
carbons from agricultural wastes that have
excellent adsorption capacity for CO2 capture.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge support through The
Science and Technology Innovation Program and Elite
Youth Program of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
(Dr. Xinhua Qi).
Funding
The work was partly financially supported from the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21577073).
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