Activated Carbon Derived from Cucumber Peel for Use as a Supercapacitor Electrode Material.

Biowaste conversion into activated carbon is a sustainable and inexpensive approach that relieves the pressure on its disposal. Here, we prepared micro-mesoporous activated carbons (ACs) from cucumber peels through carbonization at 600 °C followed by thermal activation at different temperatures. The ACs were tested as supercapacitors for the first time. The carbon activated at 800 °C (ACP-800) showed a high specific capacitance value of 300 F/g at a scan rate of 5 mV/s in the cyclic voltammetry and 331 F/g at the current density of 0.1 A/g in the galvanostatic charge-discharge analysis. At the current density of 1 A/g, the specific discharge capacitance was 286 F/g and retained 100% capacity after 2000 cycles. Their properties were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, porosity, thermal analysis, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The specific surface area of this sample was calculated to be 2333 m2 g-1 using the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller method. The excellent performance of ACP-800 is mainly attributed to its hierarchical porosity, as the mesopores provide connectivity between the micropores and improve the capacitive performance. These electrochemical properties enable this carbon material prepared from cucumber peels to be a potential source for supercapacitor materials.

Carbon Dioxide Adsorption over Activated Carbons Produced from Molasses Using H2SO4, H3PO4, HCl, NaOH, and KOH as Activating Agents.

Cost-effective activated carbons for CO2 adsorption were developed from molasses using H2SO4, H3PO4, HCl, NaOH, and KOH as activating agents. At the temperature of 0 °C and a pressure of 1 bar, CO2 adsorption equal to 5.18 mmol/g was achieved over activated carbon obtained by KOH activation. The excellent CO2 adsorption of M-KOH can be attributed to its high microporosity. However, activated carbon prepared using HCl showed quite high CO2 adsorption while having very low microporosity. The absence of acid species on the surface promotes CO2 adsorption over M-HCl. The pore size ranges that are important for CO2 adsorption at different temperatures were estimated. The higher the adsorption temperature, the more crucial smaller pores were. For 1 bar pressure and temperatures of 0, 10, 20, and 30 °C, the most important were pores equal and below: 0.733, 0.733, 0.679, and 0.536 nm, respectively.