Nitrogen-Doped Carbon Foams Synthesized from Banana Peel and Zinc Complex Template for Adsorption of CO₂, CH₄, and N₂

Abstract

We report nitrogen-doped, activated carbon foams prepared from banana peels using a selftemplate method with zinc nitrate, 2-aminophenol-and furfural involved. Importantly, we have extended the banana peel zinc complex soft-template method to investigate the effects of carbonization temperature and post-carbonization CO2 activation on the carbon pore structure, and examined the effect of N-content on the carbon foam's equilibrium adsorption capacity for 2 CO2. The carbon foams contain up to 6.0 %wt nitrogen, and feature cellular macroporous structures with BET specific surface areas up to 1426 m 2 .g-1. The potential of the carbon foams for CO2/N2, CO2/CH4 and CH4/N2 separations was evaluated by measurement of pure fluid adsorption capacities using a gravimetric adsorption apparatus and calculation of adsorption selectivies at a range of conditions using Ideal Adsorption Solution Theory (IAST). The adsorption capacities at a 4000 kPa and 298 K were CO2 9.21 mmol.g-1 , CH4 5.29 mmol.g-1 and N2 3.29 mmol.g-1. 1 Introduction Carbon foams with high void volumes, hierarchical porous structures, low bulk density, and good thermal and electrical conductivity have been reported as catalyst supports, energy storage electrodes, insulation materials and adsorbents 1, 2. Carbon foams can be prepared from coal tar pitch and petroleum pitch 3, 4 , polymeric precursors 5 or renewable biomass-based precursors such as sucrose 6 and banana peel 7. Renewable biomass materials for carbon foams may offer long-term environmental and economic advantages to fossil-fuel sources such as pitch. In addition, biomass materials can provide interesting natural macroporous structures and chemical compositions that may be utilised to create novel foam properties. Banana peel (BP) is an agricultural waste available in large volumes as bananas are a very popular and nutritionally important fruit for a wide population of the world-the global production of bananas is more than 100 million tonnes annually 8. Our collective appetite for bananas generates a large volume of waste banana peels as the peel typically represents 30-40 % of the banana's weight 9, 10 and, although most bananas are consumed raw or cooked in 3 domestic contexts there are still large volumes of waste BP produced in industrial food processing plants and these peels are typically disposed to landfill. Alternatives to disposal of waste banana peels from food processing plants to landfills include utilisation of the waste BP in biogas generation 11 , extraction of aromatic compounds 10 and production of activated carbon adsorbents 12, 13. Banana peels contain a diverse mix of biopolymers including pectin, hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin 9, 14. Of particular relevance to our current work on carbon foams are the gel-forming properties of BP-pectins 9 and the polar surface functional groups on various BP compounds, which can act as sites for metal ion complexation (often cited for use in heavy metal ion adsorption 15, 16). Lv et al. 7 utilised both BP's gel-forming properties and ...

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