Carbon Dioxide Adsorption over Activated Carbons Produced from Molasses Using H 2 SO 4 , H 3 PO 4 , HCl, NaOH, and KOH as Activating Agents.

Cost-effective activated carbons for CO 2 adsorption were developed from molasses using H 2 SO 4 , H 3 PO 4 , HCl, NaOH, and KOH as activating agents. At the temperature of 0 °C and a pressure of 1 bar, CO 2 adsorption equal to 5.18 mmol/g was achieved over activated carbon obtained by KOH activation. The excellent CO 2 adsorption of M-KOH can be attributed to its high microporosity. However, activated carbon prepared using HCl showed quite high CO 2 adsorption while having very low microporosity. The absence of acid species on the surface promotes CO 2 adsorption over M-HCl. The pore size ranges that are important for CO 2 adsorption at different temperatures were estimated. The higher the adsorption temperature, the more crucial smaller pores were. For 1 bar pressure and temperatures of 0, 10, 20, and 30 °C, the most important were pores equal and below: 0.733, 0.733, 0.679, and 0.536 nm, respectively.