Utilization of waste aquatic weeds for the sustainable production of nitrogen doped nanoporous carbon for CO2 capture

Aquatic weeds, such as water hyacinth (WH) and water lettuce (WL), are among world's nastiest aquatic weeds which unswervingly effects water eutrophication. If these fast growing weeds could be harvested on a large scale, it could not only possible to mitigate the issue of water eutrophication but also provide a good source for biomass. Herein, we demonstrate a facile, solid-state pyrolysis and chemical activation process at different temperatures (x-600-800) to convert the WH and WL into carbon microstructures (WHC-x and WLC-x). The results indicate that porous carbon exhibit high specific surface area 1335 and 983 m(2) g(-1) for WHC-700 and WLC-600, respectively. As a solid-state adsorbent, the obtained porous carbon showed a high CO2 adsorption capacity at ambient pressures of up to 6.01 and 3.48 mmol g-1 at 0 degrees C, for WHC-700 and WLC-600 respectively.Copyright (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering: Transcending Boundaries-2021.

Automated summary

This study demonstrates a solid-state pyrolysis and chemical activation process to convert water hyacinth and water lettuce into porous carbon materials with high specific surface area and CO2 adsorption capacity.