Carbon dioxide adsorption on carbonized cigarette filters

Abstract

Nowadays, the world is facing tremendous challenges due to increase in greenhouse gas emissions (mainly carbon dioxide), which causes a major global warming problem. CO2 release into the atmosphere is mainly due to burning of fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum and natural gas. Various methods are developed to reduce CO2 emissions. Of all the ways, porous carbon is attractive because of its low energy consumption and higher adsorption capacity. Discarded cigarette filters, in the form of cigarette butts, are currently a major waste disposal and environmental pollution hazard because cellulose acetate is not biodegradable. Given that they are mainly composed of cellulose acetate, which contain a high degree of carbon atoms and can potentially be the precursor for porous carbon. The incorporation of nitrogen-containing groups into carbon has been proposed as an effective way to enhance the interaction between CO2 molecules and surfaces of sorbents, which may further improve CO2 adsorption capacity and CO2/N2 selectivity. In this work, to understand the relationship between nitrogen content in porous carbon/carbonization temperature for samples and their CO2 capacities, a series of nitrogen doped porous carbons were synthesized, from cigarette filters as carbon precursor and urea as nitrogen source, by varying the urea concentration and carbonization temperature investigating their CO2 adsorption capacities. Through TGA test, the sorbent 12M700C was found to have the largest CO2 capacity.