Microporous and hollow carbon spheres derived from soft drinks: Promising CO2 separation materials

Craig M. Teague, Jennifer A. Schott, Caitlin Stieber, Zoe E. Mann, Pengfei Zhang, Ben R. Williamson, Sheng Dai, Shannon M. Mahurin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this work, we demonstrate that a simple hydrothermal treatment followed by pyrolysis of regular and diet soft drinks can generate well-defined carbon structures including solid and hollow spheres with a high degree of microporosity. These materials show high and selective CO2 adsorption with a capacity up to 4.65 mmol g−1 at 0 °C and 1 bar depending on the particular soft drink used as the precursor. Isosteric heats of adsorption ranged from 22.3 kJ mol−1 to 29.2 kJ mol−1 which suggests a relatively low regeneration energy for ease of re-use. Carbon dioxide adsorption cycles were repeated for ten cycles with no loss of capacity confirming the reusability of the carbon. We also explore the effect of artificial sweeteners on the morphology and CO2 interaction of the resulting carbon materials. These results show that waste soft drinks can be used to create high-value, porous carbon materials for applications such as carbon capture.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)199-206
Number of pages8
JournalMicroporous and Mesoporous Materials
Volume286
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 15 2019

Funding

This work was primarily sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy , Office of Science , Basic Energy Sciences , Chemical Sciences , Geosciences, and Biosciences Division . C.M.T, C·S., and Z.E.M. acknowledge support from the U.S. Department of Energy , Office of Science , Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists under the Visiting Faculty Program. C.M.T. thanks Cornell College for a Campbell McConnell Sabbatical Fellowship. We thank Richard Mayes for helpful discussions.

Keywords

  • CO capture
  • Gas adsorption
  • Porous carbon

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Microporous and hollow carbon spheres derived from soft drinks: Promising CO2 separation materials'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this