Enhancing the capacitive deionization performance requires the inner structure expansion of porous activated carbon to facilitate the charge storage and electrolyte penetration. This work aimed to modify the porosity of coconut-shell activated carbon (AC) through CO2 activation at high temperature. The electrochemical performance of CO2- activated AC electrodes was evaluated by cyclic voltammetry, charge/discharge test and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, which exhibited that AC-800 had the superior performance with the highest capacitance of 112 F/g at the rate of 0.1 A/g and could operate for up to 4000 cycles. Furthermore, in the capacitive deionization, AC-800 showed salt removal of 9.15 mg/g with a high absorption rate of 2.8 mg/g min and Ni(II) removal of 5.32 mg/g with a rate close to 1 mg/g.min. The results promote the potential application of CO2- activated AC for desalination as well as Ni-removal through capacitance deionization (CDI) technology.

Nitrogen-doped carbons have attracted much attention due to their novel application in relation to gas storage. In this study, nitrogen-doped porous carbons were synthesized using SBA-15 as a template, polypyrrole as the carbon and nitrogen precursor, and KOH as an activating agent. The effect of the activation temperature (600–850°C) on the CO2 adsorption capacity of the obtained porous carbons was studied. Characterization of the resulting carbons showed that they were micro-/meso-porous carbon materials with a well-developed pore structure that varied with the activation temperature. The highest surface area of 1488 m2 g–1 was achieved at an activation temperature of 800°C (AC-800). The nitrogen content of the activated carbon decreased from 4.74 to 1.39 wt% with an increase in the activation temperature from 600 to 850°C. This shows that nitrogen is oxidized and more easily removed than carbon during the activation process, which indicates that C-N bonds are more easily ruptured at higher temperatures. Furthermore, CO2 adsorption isotherms showed that AC-800 exhibited the best CO2 adsorption capacity of 110 mg g–1 at 298 K and 1 bar.

Activated carbon fibers(ACFs) were prepared in this research from a polyacrylonitrile(PAN) precursor with the KOH(1~4 M) pretreatment and following activation at 800oC in a lab-scale. The sample ACFs were characterized according to their textural properties, and evaluated for CO2 adsorption capacity. The surface area and pore volume of ACFs increased according to the pretreatment with KOH; for example, 4M-KOH aqueous solution resulted in 1552.5 m2/g specific surface area and 0.605 cc/g pore volume. It also showed high CO2 adsorption amount(3.11 mmol/g) which showed a proportional increase with reaction pressure.

There appeared enhancements of the conversion of methane by adding a small amount of CO in the aromatization reaction of methane using the Mo-zeolite catalyst. In case of adding CO2, CO2 changed to CO first, and then the conversion reaction occurred. It was observed by using isotopes as reactants that CO is related to the aromatization reaction of methane.

CO2gas중에서 산화된 활성탄소섬유를 77K에서 질소흡착에 의해 흡착등온곡선을 구하였다. 미세공부피와 외부표면적은 t-법으로 구하였으며, 평균기공크기와 기공분포는 Dubinin-Astakhov법으로 구하여 기공발당과정을 고찰하였다. 산화반응 초기(약 40% burn-off까지)에 섬유내부에 발달하는 미세공은 burn-off가 40%를 넘으면 서서히 큰 미세공으로 성장하며, burn-off가 약 60%이상되면 미세기공은 확대 또는 합체되어 점차 중기공으로 성장하는 것으로 관찰되었다. 또한 고온산화반응으로 발달한 기공은 저온에서 생성된 기공보다 크다.

등방성 피치계 탄소섬유를 Co2gas중에서 등온산화시켜 활성탄소섬유를 제조하였다. 산화된 섬유의 비표면적은 BET장치를 이용하여 측정하였다. Burn-off가 증가하여도 반응속도는 크게 감소하지 않았으며, 800˚C와 900˚C에서 산화된 섬유의 비표면적은 40%-60%의 burn-off에서 급격히 증가하다가 60%이상에서 감소하였다. 1100˚C에서 산화된 시편은 40%이상 burn-off되어도 비표면적은 크게 증가하지 않고 60%를 지나서도 계속해서 표면적이 증가하는 현상을 나타내었다. 1000˚C에서 60.4%의 burn-off가 일어난 산화섬유의 비표면적은 3,614m2/g로 가장 큰 값이 얻어졌다. 등방성 탄소섬유는 미세한 흑연결정립들이 무질서한 배향을 하고 있으며, 미세기공벽으로 작용할 수 있는 결정립층이 많기 때문에 활성탄소섬유 제조를 위한 원료로 적합하다고 판단된다.