Preparation Of Bamboo Active Carbon And Its Application Studies

Activated carbons (ACs) with developed porosity are extensively used in many fields of people life. With the increasing pollution of environment, the demand for activated carbon is growing. The adsorptive capacities of ACs are associated with their internal porosity. Due to the large pore size and volume and the relatively high specific surface area, mesoporous activated carbons find many applications for loading catalysts or other chemicals. It shows better performance to be an electrode material in the electrochemical application, and is of potential usage in biomedical or biochemical applications. Presently, manufacture of mesoporous carbon materials have been received an increasing research interest.A big problem facing human being is to find out an appropriate alternative fuel to release the pressure on petroleum demand. Natural gas is a clean fuel with relatively abundant resources. It was reported that much more methane would be stored in carbon in the presence of water. There is plenty of bamboo on the world and China. In this study, ACs of elatively high surface area and high mesopore portion were prepared from bamboo flotsams by H₃PO₄ activation. Electrochemical behavior of the capacitors using the prepared carbon as electrode material was tested. The capacitor shows relatively large capacitance and good charging/discharging property due to the improved pore condition for the double-layer formation. Experiments on methane sorption in the ACs showed that the sorption amount in wet ACs is much higher than that on the dry one. The enhancement mechanism was attributed to the formation of methane hydrate.A serious problem of the world is the increasingly warmer weather of the earth. CO₂ emission is considered responsible for it. Therefore, it is necessary to study how CO₂ can be captured in order for sequestration or utilization. The bamboo-based ACs were tested for the separation potential of CO₂ from its mixture with CH4 and N2. Experiments on CO₂ sorption in the ACs showed that the sorption amount in wet ACs is larger than that in dry carbon, which was explained with the formation of CO₂ hydrate. Charging/discharging experiment of CO₂ onto/from wet carbon showed that CO₂ hydrate was formed in 100 min and the thermal effect of the process is much less than on dry ACs.