Valorisation of Tectona Grandis tree sawdust through the production of high activated carbon for environment applications

Abstract

This work presents a first approach concerning the use of Tectona Grandis tree sawdust (from East Timor) for high activated carbon production, by physical activation with carbon dioxide at different temperatures. The activated carbons (AC) obtained exhibit a well-developed porous structure with a pore size distribution varying from micro to mesopores. Selected AC was successfully evaluated for pesticide removal, specific to 4-chloro-2-methylphenoxyacetic acid, from the liquid phase. The results presented are very promising, allowing to establish that Tectona Grandis sawdust is as an excellent precursor for the basic AC production and allow to expect good performance of theses adsorbents on the removal of a broad range of pollutants. It should also be noted that, this achievement is very relevant for developing countries, such East Timor, where Tectona Grandis sawdust is available and may constitute a source of income creating a handle to the technical and industrial development of this region.

Use of dirty plastic waste as precursors for activated carbon production—A contribution to the circular economy

“…The best performance of PB-K 2 CO 3 -1:1-700 can be explained by the higher specific surface and micropore volume and by a favourable mean pore size dimension. As reported before by Cansado et al (2018), when the ratio between the mean pore size of the AC and the adsorptive molecular dimensions is lower than 1.5, the adsorption is controlled by size exclusion. This is what probably happens when using PB-CO 2 -8300 as an adsorbent, which has a mean pore size of 0.83 nm.…”

“…ACs can be produced from a diversity of precursors, with different origins and compositions, by physical or chemical activation using a multiplicity of physical (Vogt et al, 2019) or chemical activating agents (Heidarinejad et al, 2020). The production of ACs is a process well known, and several precursors have been used for this purpose, such as cork, mineral coal and cotton (Carrott et al, 2016;Márquez et al, 2021;Shirvanimoghaddam et al, 2019); rice husk and walnut peel, olive pit, almond peel, wood composites and polyethylene-F I G U R E 1 Plastics used in agricultural activities terephthalate (Fetene et al, 2018); polyacrylonitrile, poly-etherketone and diversity of wood waste (Cansado et al, 2018;Mourão et al, 2011;Qiang et al, 2021;Siipola et al, 2020); wood furniture waste (chipboard and plywood), scrap tyres, urban sewage and straw (Karimia et al, 2020;Sainz-Diaz & Griffiths, 2000); carob waste (Viegas et al, 2020) and urban waste (Cabrita et al, 2010).…”

Dealing with Plastic Waste from Agriculture Activity

“…ACs are material adsorbents that present exceptional physical and chemical properties, such as high surface area, well-developed pore structure (micro-, meso-, and macropores), and a high degree of surface reactivity. ACs are used in a diversity of industrial applications, such as catalysis or support catalyst, energy storage, and as adsorbents for the removal from the liquid or gaseous phases, unwanted odor, pollutants, taste, coloration, heavy metals, organic chemicals such as paint thinners, pesticides, and pharmaceutical and phenolic compounds, among others [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22].…”

Synthesis and characterization of activated carbon derived from Tectona grandis sawdust via green route

“…T. grandis sawdust is inexpensive, unusable and is a waste that is generally discarded 22 . T. grandis sawdust has a high carbon content of approximately 50%, a strong attribute of a possible naturally activated carbon precursor 23 …”