The adsorption properties of microporous activated carbon prepared from pistachio nut shell for low-concentration VOCs under low-medium temperatures

The control of low-concentration VOCs in coal-fired flue gas is one of the research hotspots at present. In this work, K2CO3 and K2CO3-KCl were employed to activate the agricultural wastes (pistachio nut shell) to prepare activated carbon (AC), named PSAC-1 and PSAC-2, respectively. By testing the adsorption performance of the prepared AC and commercial activated carbon (CAC) for the five target VOCs, it was observed that the adsorption capacity of PSAC-2 was the best compared to the other two. Particularly, the adsorption capacity of PSAC-2 (225 mg·g-1) for phenol was 3.8 times that of CAC (59 mg·g-1). In addition, the pseudo-first-order model, pseudo-second-order model, and Elovich model all fitted the adsorption process well, which indicated that both physical adsorption and chemical adsorption existed simultaneously, in which physical adsorption played a dominant role and chemical adsorption played a minor role. Weber-Morris kinetic model was used to illustrate the rate-controlling mechanism; the results confirmed that the stage of external membrane mass transfer was the control stage of adsorption rate. The results of this study can provide some references for the commercial production of biomass-derived AC and the removal of VOCs in coal-fired flue gas.