Synthesis and Characterization of Coconut Pith Char Adsorbents for Carbon Dioxide Capture

The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance of coconut pith char as an
adsorbent for capturing anthropogenic CO2 gas before it is emitted to the atmosphere.
Coconut pith chars were successfully synthesized and characterized as a potential CO2
adsorbent. Coconut pith char was used for carbonization process at various
temperatures (300ºC-700ºC). The char adsorbents obtained were characterized using
Yield and Proximate analysis, Nitrogen adsorption-desorption analysis (NAD), CHNS
elemental analysis, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Fourier Transform
Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The porous properties of the coconut pith chars
obtained including the Brunauer-Emmett Teller (BET) surface area, pore volume and
average pore diameter were determined by nitrogen adsorption isotherms. The results
obtained showed that with increase in carbonization temperature, changes of physical
and chemical properties of the char adsorbent were observed. The highest BET surface
area was noticed in CP700 with an area of 315.06 m2
/g, pore diameter of 1.9 nm and
pore volume of 149.70 (cm3/g) x103
. However, CP500 the highest adsorption capacity
of about 1.1 mmole/g. From the obtained results, it is feasible to produce coconut pith
chars with high CO2 adsorption capacity by selecting the appropriate conditions for
carbonization.