Enhancing CO2 capture with K2CO3-activated carbon derived from peanut shell

This study explores the transformation of peanut shells, an abundant agricultural waste, into high-efficiency activated carbon for CO 2 capture using a two-step pyrolysis and K 2 CO 3 activation method. Observations indicated that with an increasing impregnation ratio, the activated carbon demonstrates remarkable improvements in structural properties, achieving specific surface areas and pore volumes of 1150.02 m 2 /g and 0.46 cm 3 /g, respectively. Among the prepared samples, the activated carbon obtained with a peanut shell to K 2 CO 3 impregnation mass ratio of 1:2 exhibits superior CO 2 adsorption capacity at 1 bar, with values of 3.76 mmol/g at 25 °C and 5.70 mmol/g at 0 °C. The CO 2 adsorption isotherms of the activated carbon conform to the Langmuir and Freundlich models. These results demonstrate the potential of this method in addressing environmental concerns, particularly in mitigating CO 2 emissions, and highlight the broader application prospects of biomass-derived activated carbon in environmental management.