MacDermid-Watts Kevin, Adewakun Eniola, Norouzi Omid, Abhi Trishan Deb, Pradhan Ranjan, Dutta Animesh
School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada.
ACS Omega. 2021 May 28;6(23):14875-14886. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.1c00557. eCollection 2021 Jun 15.
Corn wet distillers' fiber (corn fiber) is a byproduct of the corn-ethanol production process, with high potential as a precursor for activated carbon due to its moderate nitrogen content and availability. However, there has been limited investigation into activated carbons from the corn fiber. In this work, we produce activated carbons from the corn fiber using three procedures, including direct KOH activation, hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) followed by KOH activation, and FeCl-catalyzed HTC followed by KOH activation. Catalytic HTC with FeCl was found to slightly increase the degree of carbonization relative to uncatalyzed HTC while also removing the nitrogen content at increasing concentrations and slightly increasing the porosity. The resulting activated carbon samples are then characterized by thermal gravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and nitrogen analysis. The two-step process resulted in activated carbon with substantially higher surface areas than the one-step process (1220 vs 789 m/g), as well as much higher thermal stability and nitrogen content (up to 1.20%). The results show that the corn fiber has potential for activated carbon production, with the two-step HTC followed by the activation process producing more favorable material properties than direct activation.
玉米湿法蒸馏纤维（玉米纤维）是玉米乙醇生产过程中的一种副产品，由于其适度的氮含量和可得性，作为活性炭前驱体具有很高的潜力。然而，对由玉米纤维制备活性炭的研究有限。在这项工作中，我们使用三种方法由玉米纤维制备活性炭，包括直接KOH活化、水热碳化（HTC）后再进行KOH活化，以及FeCl催化的HTC后再进行KOH活化。结果发现，与未催化的HTC相比，FeCl催化的HTC会使碳化程度略有增加，同时还能去除浓度不断增加的氮含量，并略微增加孔隙率。然后通过热重分析、傅里叶变换红外光谱、扫描电子显微镜和氮分析对所得的活性炭样品进行表征。两步法制备的活性炭比一步法具有更高的表面积（分别为1220和789 m²/g），以及更高的热稳定性和氮含量（高达1.20%）。结果表明，玉米纤维具有生产活性炭的潜力，两步HTC后再进行活化过程比直接活化产生更有利的材料性能。
