Activated carbon produced from paulownia sawdust for high-performance CO2 sorbents

In this paper, activated carbons (ACs) with high specific surface areas were successfully synthesized by simple one-step carbonization-activation from paulownia sawdust biomass, and the effects of the synthetic conditions on their CO₂ capture capacity were investigated as well. The results show that, when the mass ratio between activator and biomass is 4, the activation temperature is 700℃ and the activation time is 1 h, as-made AC provides the most micropores for CO₂ adsorption. As a consequence, the maximum CO₂ uptake of 8.0 mmol/g is obtained at 0℃ and 1 bar.