(225i) Development of PET-Based Carbon Monoxide Adsorbents Using Various Activating Agents

Carbon monoxide is emitted as a byproduct gas in various places such as the steel industry and partial oxidation processes. Because carbon monoxide is a raw material necessary for producing high value-added chemicals, technologies for separating and utilizing unreacted carbon monoxide are economically crucial. Adsorption is advantageous for capturing and separating low-concentration gases with low energy consumption. Activated carbon has the advantages of being cheaper than other adsorbents and easy to control pore size as adsorbents. In this study, PET (polyethylene terephthalate) was selected as a precursor for production of porous carbon. Because activated carbon has difficulty selectively adsorbing carbon monoxide, transition metal ions are usually incorporated to induce the π-complexation between carbon monoxide and metal ions for chemical adsorption of carbon monoxide. However, when transition metals are incorporated, transition metals can block the pore of activated carbon, so pore blocking phenomenon may occur. To prevent this problem, an optimal amount of transition metals was found for maximum carbon monoxide adsorption. Overall, this study aims to discover the suitable pore size of activated carbon by experimenting with different activating agents for carbon monoxide adsorption.