Biomass-derived porous carbons are regarded as the most preferential adsorbents for CO2 capture due to their well-developed textural properties, tunable porosity and low cost. Herein, novel porous carbons were facilely prepared by activation of palm sheath for the highly selective separation of CO2 from gas mixtures. The textural features of carbon materials were characterized by the analysis of surface morphology and N2 isotherms for textural characterization. The as-prepared carbon adsorbents possess an excellent CO2 adsorption capacity of 3.48 mmol g-1 (298 K) and 5.28 mmol g-1 (273 K) at 1 bar, and outstanding IAST selectivities of CO2/N2, CO2/CH4, and CH4/N2 up to 32.7, 7.1 and 4.6 at 298 K and 1 bar, respectively. Also, the adsorption evaluation criteria of the vacuum swing adsorption (VSA) process, the breakthrough experiments, and the cyclic experiments have comprehensively demonstrated the palm sheath derived porous carbons as efficient adsorbents for practical applications.
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