Moso bamboo, as a kind of renewable functional material, exhibits outstanding development potential. It is promising to prepare activated carbon with good mechanical strength and high specific surface area using moso bamboo as raw material. In this work, we employed a hydraulic extruder to extrude the bamboo charcoal and the adhesive to obtain the moso bamboo activated carbon, and improved the specific surface area of the columnar activated carbon through high-temperature water vapor activation. Through the catalytic role of the water vapor activation process, the formation and expansion of the pores were promoted and the internal pores were greatly increased. The obtained columnar activated carbon shows excellent mechanical strength (93%) and high specific surface area (791.54 m2/ g). Polyacrylamide@asphalt is one of the most effective adhesives in the high-temperature water vapor activation. The average pore size (22.99 nm) and pore volume (0.36 cm3/ g) of the prepared columnar activated carbon showed a high mesoporous ratio (83%). Based on the excellent pore structure brought by the activation process, the adsorption capacity of iodine (1135.75 mg/g), methylene blue (230 mg/g) and carbon tetrachloride (64.03 mg/g) were greatly improved. The resultant moso bamboo columnar activated carbon with high specific surface area, excellent mechanical properties, and outstanding adsorption capacity possesses a wide range of industrial applications and environmental protection potential.

Polylactic acid (PLA) is often used in the preparation of environmentally friendly biodegradable polymer plastics, and how to improve the flame retardant performance of polylactic acid has been concerned by experts and scholars. Here, we provide a new idea, using bamboo activated carbon as the main material, and phytic acid, urea and Zn(NO3)2·6(H2O) as modifiers to produce a new type of carbon flame retardant. It has bamboo activated carbon as carbon source; second, it has P, N elements and metal oxides. The two synergistically play a flame retardant role on polylactic acid. The polylactic acid composite showed good thermal stability, from no grade optimization to V-0 in the UL-94 test, and the limiting oxygen index was also increased from 20.1 to 31.2%. The above tests show that bamboo activated carbon loaded with ZnO has a good flame retardant effect on polylactic acid.