Synthesis of amination bamboo-lignite activated carbon and their properties

Abstract

This paper used bamboo char and lignite as raw materials to prepare the new material of amination bamboo/lignite activated carbon (BAC) through carbonisation and activation. It investigated the influences of the preparation conditions on the desulfurisation performance of the new carbon material. BET and XPS were adopted to carry out the physical and chemical structural characterisation of the carbon material. The analysis results indicated that the pore structure of BAC through ammonia activation was similar to that of steam activation; the activated carbons after both activations contained carbon groups of the same variety. The difference between ammonia activation and steam activation lies in the two new nitrogen-containing groups in the carbon material after the ammonia activation:para-pyridine or para-nitrile group and amine, amine, amide, imide and para-pyrrole. The results also indicated that the activity of BAC was related to the para-pyridine groups. Studies on the preparation of activation conditions showed that the sulphur capacity of BAC increased along with the increasing activator concentration. The sulphur capacity increased first and decreased later along with the increasing activation temperature; and it increased along with the extension of activation time. The optimal activation condition is 8.5–14.5% ammonia concentration, 850–950°C activation temperature and 120–150 min activation time.

Keywords:

• Bamboo char
• Lignite
• Activated carbon
• Desulphurisation
• X-ray and gamma-ray spectroscopies