Sustainable packaging waste- derived activated carbon for carbon dioxide capture

Global greenhouse gases emissions have increased tremendously since 1950's due to excessive burning of fossil fuel. The objective of this work is to develop and investigate packaging waste-derived activated carbon for carbon capture. Activated carbon was synthesized by carbonization of peanut-shaped packaging waste followed by chemical activation using KOH at a ratio of one to four. The activated carbon was characterized for it is textural properties using N-2 adsorption at 77 K, and carbon dioxide adsorption isotherms at 273, 298 and 323 K. Non-Linear Density Functional Theory (NDLFT) was applied to carbon dioxide isotherm at 273 K to characterize narrow micropores and microporous structure of activated carbon. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to investigate morphology and microstructure. TEM micrographs confirmed the existence of random micropores. We have also noticed that the textural properties were highly dependent on the concentration of the activating agent. Carbon dioxide adsorption on activated carbon materials has shown dependency on the volume of narrow micropores (less than 0.8 nm). The activated carbon materials have narrow micropore volume in a range of 0.155-0.292 cm(3), and BET surface area of 761-1383 m(2)/g. Carbon activated with KOH ratio of three (WDC-03) has shown excellent CO2 uptake of 5.33 and 4.24 mmol/g at 273 and 298 K respectively. Moreover, it has also shown a high value for the isosteric heat of adsorption (29.8-14.3 KJ/mol) and selectivity of similar to 16 over nitrogen.