An Assessment of the Conversion of Biomass and Industrial Waste Products to Activated Carbon

Eric N. Coker, Xavier Lujan-Flores, Burl Donaldson, Nadir Yilmaz () and Alpaslan Atmanli
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Eric N. Coker: Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM 87123, USA
Xavier Lujan-Flores: Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM 87123, USA
Burl Donaldson: Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM 87123, USA
Nadir Yilmaz: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059, USA
Alpaslan Atmanli: Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Defense University, 06654 Ankara, Turkey

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 4, 1-14

Abstract: The production of biochar from biomass and industrial wastes provides both environmental and economic sustainability. An effective way to ensure the sustainability of biochar is to produce high value-added activated carbon. The desirable characteristic of activated carbon is its high surface area for efficient adsorption of contaminants. Feedstocks can include a number of locally available materials with little or negative value, such as orchard slash and crop residue. In this context, it is necessary to determine and know the conversion effects of the feedstocks to be used in the production of activated carbon. In the study conducted for this purpose; several samples (piñon wood, pecan wood, hardwood, dried grass, Wyoming coal dust, Illinois coal dust, Missouri coal dust, and tire residue) of biomass and industrial waste products were investigated for their conversion into activated carbon. Small samples (approximately 0.02 g) of the feedstocks were pyrolyzed under inert or mildly oxidizing conditions in a thermal analyzer to determine their mass loss as a function of temperature and atmosphere. Once suitable conditions were established, larger quantities (up to 0.6 g) were pyrolyzed in a tube furnace and harvested for characterization of their surface area and porosity via gas sorption analysis. Among the samples used, piñon wood gave the best results, and pyrolysis temperatures between 600 and 650 °C gave the highest yield. Slow pyrolysis or hydrothermal carbonization have come to the fore as recommended production methods for the conversion of biochar, which can be produced from biomass and industrial wastes, into activated carbon.

Keywords: biomass; industrial waste; conversion; pyrolysis; activated carbon (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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