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The present study investigates the impact of biomass origin on the properties of biochar and its interaction with different treatment conditions, CO2 adsorption, and regeneration ability. The bioch...

The present study examined the effect of pyrolysis temperature on the physicochemical properties of biochar, activation process and carbon capture. Two different categories of biochars were synthesized from herbaceous (miscanthus and switchgrass) or agro-industrial (corn stover and sugarcane bagasse) feedstock under four different pyrolysis temperatures- 500, 600, 700 and 800 oC. The synthesized biochars underwent sono-amination activation comprising low-frequency acoustic treatment followed by amine functionalization to prepare adsorbents for CO2 capture. As per the elemental analysis, the elevated pyrolysis temperature resulted in increased %C and %ash contents and reduced %N contents of biochar. The textural analysis exhibited almost 3-times enhancement of micro surface area and pore volume upon increasing the pyrolysis temperature from 500 to 700 oC, though further increase to 800 oC reduced the micro-porosity and the surface area. The intermediate temperatures of 600 and 700 oC revealed the highest interactions with ultrasound-amination, which significantly intensified CO2 adsorption. Accordingly, the CO2 capture capacity of sono-aminated biochars synthesized at 600 and 700 oC were almost 200% greater than that of raw biochars. There were 127-159% and 115-151% increases in adsorption capacity of biochars synthesized at 800 and 500 oC upon ultrasono-amine functionalization. Miscanthus biochar synthesized at 700 oC and treated sono-chemically demonstrated the highest adsorption ability of 2.89 mmol/g at 70 oC and 0.10 atm partial pressure, which is 211% higher than its pristine condition. The superior adsorption capacity of miscanthus (at 700 oC) can be attributed to its large surface area (324.35 m2/g), high carbon content (84%), and low ash content (4.9%), as well as its %N content after sono-amination that was twice that of raw char.

The present study discusses a novel biochar activation technique consisting of physical modification using low frequency ultrasound and chemical functionalization with individual amines and their b...

This paper describes a two-stage biochar activation process for CO2 capture, which includes acoustic treatment and amination. Contrarily to traditional carbon activation at temperatures above 700 °C, both stages of the current process are conducted at or near room temperature. It is known that CO2 can be fixed on the edge carbons of polycyclic aromatics hydrocarbons (PAHs) through thermal and reductive photo-carboxylation. Our previous work on biochar suggested that carbon of CO2 could be chemically fixed on biochar through acoustic or photochemical treatment of biochar in water/CO2 systems under ambient conditions. Separately, the graphene oxide (GO) literature reveals that carboxylic acids, epoxy and hydroxyl groups on biochar surface often serve as the active sites for converting GO to a new family of chemicals; amines are commonly grafted on these groups in the functionalization. Biochar has graphite and graphitic oxide clusters that consist of the oxygen functional groups mentioned above. These oxygen functionalities can be utilized for CO2 adsorption when functionalized with amine. Thus, the present study focuses on maximizing the CO2 capture capacity by manipulating the physicochemical structure of a pinewood-derived biochar. In this two-stage process, 30 s sonication at ambient temperature was applied to physically activate biochar prior to functionalization. Low-frequency ultrasound irradiation exfoliates and breaks apart the irregular graphitic layers of biochar, and creates new/opens the blocked microspores, thus enhancing the biochar’s porosity and permeability that are the keys in functionalization and subsequent CO2 capture. The sono-modified biochar was then functionalized with tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA) in the presence of two activating agents. The changes in surface characteristics, functional groups, graphene-like structure, and functionalization using activating agents were examined in detail and the capacity of the final products in CO2 removal was tested. The experimental results revealed that CO2 capture capacity, from a flow containing 10 and 15 vol% CO2, was almost 7 and 9 times higher, respectively, for ultrasound-treated amine-activated biochar, compared to raw biochar. The optimum capacity was 2.79 mmol/g at 70 °C and 0.15 atm CO2 partial pressure. Cyclic adsorption and desorption tests revealed that the CO2 capture capacity decreased 44% after 15 cycles.