Invited Talk: Sustainable Upcycling of Low-Value Precursors to Porous Carbon Materials for CO2 Capture

The increase of greenhouse gas emissions is causing global warming and the related climate change issues worldwide. CO₂ capture and sequestration (CCS) is considered to be a promising strategy for reducing CO₂ emissions. Adsorption using solid materials is promising for CO₂ capture because this approach exhibits advantages of low energy requirement for regeneration, scale-up feasibility, and mild operating conditions. Among various adsorbents, activated carbon is attractive because of advantages such as cost-effectiveness, chemical and mechanical stability, and tunable pore structure. Activated carbon can be obtained from carbon-containing precursors. In this study, low-value carbon precursors were used to produce high value-added porous carbon for capturing greenhouse gases including CO₂. From the experimental results, the relation between porosities and CO₂ adsorption uptakes were investigated and the pore size that is crucial for CO₂ capture was determined. The prepared porous carbons not only exhibited a high CO₂ uptake, but also good selectivity, simple regeneration, excellent cyclic stability, and rapid adsorption-desorption kinetics.