Physical and Chemical Activation of Graphene-Derived Porous Nanomaterials for Post-Combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture

Activation is commonly used to improve the surface and porosity of different kinds of carbon nanomaterials: activated carbon, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and carbon black. In this study, both physical and chemical activations are applied to graphene oxide by using CO(2) and KOH-based approaches, respectively. The structural and the chemical properties of the prepared activated graphene are deeply characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectrometry and nitrogen adsorption. Temperature activation is shown to be a key parameter leading to enhanced CO(2) adsorption capacity of the graphene oxide-based materials. The specific surface area is increased from 219.3 m(2) g(−1) for starting graphene oxide to 762.5 and 1060.5 m(2) g(−1) after physical and chemical activation, respectively. The performance of CO(2) adsorption is gradually enhanced with the activation temperature for both approaches: for the best performances of a factor of 6.5 and 9 for physical and chemical activation, respectively. The measured CO(2) capacities are of 27.2 mg g(−1) and 38.9 mg g(−1) for the physically and chemically activated graphene, respectively, at 25 °C and 1 bar.