Synthesis of Mesoporous Carbon Adsorbents Using Biowaste Crude Glycerol as a Carbon Source via a Hard Template Method for Efficient CO2 Capture

Prabhu Azhagapillai; K Suresh Kumar Reddy; Gerardo D J Guerrero Pena; Rukayat S Bojesomo; Abhijeet Raj; Dalaver H Anjum; Mirella Elkadi; Georgios N Karanikolos; Mohamed I Ali

doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c01083

Synthesis of Mesoporous Carbon Adsorbents Using Biowaste Crude Glycerol as a Carbon Source via a Hard Template Method for Efficient CO₂ Capture

ACS Omega. 2023 Jun 5;8(24):21664-21676. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.3c01083. eCollection 2023 Jun 20.

Authors

Prabhu Azhagapillai¹, K Suresh Kumar Reddy^{2

3}, Gerardo D J Guerrero Pena¹, Rukayat S Bojesomo¹, Abhijeet Raj^{2

4

3}, Dalaver H Anjum^{3

5}, Mirella Elkadi¹, Georgios N Karanikolos^{2

3

6

7}, Mohamed I Ali⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Khalifa University of Science & Technology, Abu Dhabi 127788, U.A.E.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Khalifa University of Science & Technology, Abu Dhabi 127788, U.A.E.
³ Center for Catalysis and Separation, Khalifa University of Science & Technology, Abu Dhabi 127788, U.A.E.
⁴ Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi 110016, India.
⁵ Department of Physics, Khalifa University of Science & Technology, Abu Dhabi 127788, U.A.E.
⁶ Research and Innovation Center on CO2 and H2 (RICH), Khalifa University, P.O. Box 127788, Abu Dhabi 127788, U.A.E.
⁷ Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras, Patras 26500, Greece.
⁸ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Khalifa University of Science & Technology, Abu Dhabi 127788, U.A.E.

Abstract

Biowaste utilization as a carbon source and its transformation into porous carbons have been of great interest to promote environmental remediation owing to biowaste's cost-effectiveness and useful physicochemical properties. In this work, crude glycerol (CG) residue from waste cooking oil transesterification was employed to fabricate mesoporous crude glycerol-based porous carbons (mCGPCs) using mesoporous silica (KIT-6) as a template. The obtained mCGPCs were characterized and compared to commercial activated carbon (AC) and CMK-8, a carbon material prepared using sucrose. The study aimed to evaluate the potential of mCGPC as a CO₂ adsorbent and demonstrated its superior adsorption capacity compared to AC and comparable to CMK-8. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman results clearly depicted the structure of carbon nature with (002) and (100) planes and defect (D) and graphitic (G) bands, respectively. The specific surface area, pore volume, and pore diameter values confirmed the mesoporosity of mCGPC materials. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images also clearly revealed the porous nature with the ordered mesopore structure. The mCGPCs, CMK-8, and AC materials were used as CO₂ adsorbents under optimized conditions. The mCGPC adsorption capacity (1.045 mmol/g) is superior to that of AC (0.689 mmol/g) and still comparable to that of CMK-8 (1.8 mmol/g). The thermodynamic analyses of the adsorption phenomena are also carried out. This work demonstrates the successful synthesis of a mesoporous carbon material using a biowaste (CG) and its application as a CO₂ adsorbent.