Kim JS  Choi SC  Lee UD  Park ES  Jeong SH

Vol. 27,  No. 4, pp. 325-331, Dec.  2021
10.7464/ksct.2021.27.4.325

Unused biomass Bio-carbon CO2 activation Formaldehyde Acetaldehyde

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In this study, bio-carbons were produced by activation process from unused biomass (Grade 3 wood pellet and spent coffee grounds) to determine the removal performance of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde. The activation experiments were conducted in a fixed bed reactor using CO2 as an activation agent. The temperature of the activation reactor and input of CO2 were 900 ℃ and 1 L min-1 for all the experiments. The maximum BET surface area of about 788 m2 g-1 was obtained for bio-carbon produced from Grade 1 wood pellet, whereas about 544 m2 g-1 was achieved with bio-carbon produced from spent coffee grounds. In all the experiments, the bio-carbons produced were mainly found to have micro-porous nature. A lower ash amount in raw material was favored for the high surface area of bio-carbons. In the removal test of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, the bio-carbon produced from spent coffee grounds showed excellent adsorption performance compared with woody biomass (Grade 1 wood pellet and Grade 3 wood pellet). In addition, the comparative experiment of commercial impregnated activated carbon and bio-carbon produced from spent coffee grounds was conducted. In terms of formaldehyde removal performance, the commercial impregnated bio-carbon was excellent, while bio-carbon produced from spent coffee grounds was excellent in acetaldehyde removal.