Activated porous carbon derived from sawdust for CO₂ capture

Mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO₂, highlights the critical demand for efficient CO₂ capture technologies. This is due to their essential role in climate change and their profound impact on global ecosystems and human well-being. Activated carbons have emerged as promising candidates for CO₂ capture due to their availability, cost-effectiveness, and tunable properties. In this study, activated carbons were synthesized from sawdust carbonized at various temperatures within the 700–1100 °C range and subsequently activated using CO₂. Comprehensive characterization was conducted through SEM, FESEM, XRD, TGA, and FTIR techniques to assess the properties. The results reveal that carbonization at 1000 °C yielded an activated carbon with a hierarchical and microporous structure, featuring surface area, pore volume, and pore size of 1651.34 m²/g, 0.69 cm³/g, and <1.76 nm, respectively. Remarkably, this activated carbon exhibited promising CO₂ uptake of 9.2 mmol/g at 25 °C and 1 bar. Moreover, a remarkable recyclability over 10 cycles demonstrates its potential for practical CO₂ capture applications. Furthermore, the synthesized activated carbon exhibited high selectivity for CO₂ over N₂ (85/15 v/v), reaching 40.2 at 1 bar and 25 °C. These findings underscore the viability of the as-prepared activated carbon as a desired candidate for efficient and selective CO₂ capture, contributing to the ongoing efforts to mitigate the impact of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions to the environment.