Synthesis and characterization of coconut pith char adsorbents for carbon dioxide capture

Abstract

The emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) from anthropogenic sources has become a public concern. Several effective and affordable post combustion CO2 capture technology has been reported and one of the approaches is through adsorption process. This study focused the adsorption onto low-cost adsorbent that can be produced from waste biomass through carbonization method. Coconut pith (CP) was used as precursor and carbonized at temperature of 300 and 700 ºC under ambient condition. The chemical and physical properties showed that the surface area, pore volume, ash, moisture and carbon content of chars increased, while the yield content decreased with increasing carbonization temperatures. The char adsorbent carbonized at higher temperature (CP700) showed the better performance with CO2 adsorption capacity of 10.00 mmol/g at 25 ºC. It was revealed that carbonization temperature greatly affects the properties of CP, hence influence the ability of the adsorbent to capture the CO2. Hence, these unique properties and adsorption performance showed that char adsorbent enable to be used as an effective adsorbent for CO2 capture and thus improving environmental quality and sustainability.