Preparation and characterization of activated carbons prepared from wood waste and their application for gas separation

In this paper, we describe a simple, clean and low-cost technology that converts woods waste into valuable activated carbon products for environmental applications. In this work, a wide variety of industry wood waste such as Haloxylon, Apricot pits and Pine were used to prepare powders of activated carbons by a simple chemical process and thermal activation. The physical properties and surface chemistry of the activated carbons were determined by elemental analyses, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and standard Brunauer-Emmett-Teller method. The application of the prepared activated carbons for gas separation e.g. adsorption of ammonia and of cyclohexane were studied. For the prepared activated carbons shown, physical properties and gas adsorption performance are comparable to commercial activated carbons. Finally impregnation of the activated carbons with nickel nanoparticles improved their ammonia adsorption capacity.