Production of Activated Carbon from Sifted Coke and Determination of Its Physicochemical Characteristics

Abstract

The possibility of obtaining effective coal sorbents from a low-liquid product of coke chemical production—coke fines—has been studied. To obtain a coal sorbent, coke fines with a size of ≤10 mm were crushed and sieved to obtain a fraction of 2–5 mm. The resulting fraction was activated in a specially designed reactor at 850 °C with steam treatment. Activation was carried out at different durations of the process: 60, 90, and 120 min. It was found that the sample obtained with a process duration of 120 min has the best indicator for the ability to remove phenol from aqueous solutions (74.94 mg/g) and methylene blue (145 mg/g). When cleaning tap water with the resulting carbon sorbent, there is a decrease in the content of calcium, sulfates, and bicarbonate and a decrease in total mineralization. Obtained activated carbon was studied by scanning electron microscopy, low-temperature nitrogen adsorption (BET), and FTIR spectroscopy. It was found that the resulting activated carbon has a porous structure consisting of meso- and macropores, and the specific surface value was ~301 m2/g. The presence of high-intensity absorption bands corresponding to acid functional groups has also been established.

Electrophysical Properties and Heat Capacity of Activated Carbon Obtained from Coke Fines

“…The change in the graphic dependence of C p ~f(T) is probably due to the presence of carboxyl groups –COOH in activated carbon compared to the feedstock (coke fines), which was established by IR spectra in previous studies [ 28 ]. Carboxyl groups –COOH are thermally less stable than C–O [ 31 ]; therefore, the peak on the graph C p ~f(T) is shifted towards lower temperatures.…”

“…In this article, the specific heat capacity and dielectric permittivity of activated carbon obtained by the steam activation of coke fines are studied. Activation was carried out in a stainless steel reactor at a temperature of 850 °C for 120 min [ 28 ].…”

“…In this paper, studies have been conducted to study the electrophysical characteristics and heat capacity of activated carbon (AC) obtained from coke fines (CF) by the method presented in [ 28 ]. The possibility of using activated carbon obtained in previous studies as a material for capacitors has been evaluated.…”

Influence of Raw Materials and Technological Factors on the Sorption Properties of Blast-Fuel Coke

“…Consequently, carbon sorbents are used to purify water from dyes, phenols, various metal ions, and to purify gases. The efficiency of the adsorption process depends on the physicochemical properties of the sorbent (bulk density, specific surface area, pore volume, and mechanical strength) [1][2][3][4].…”