Activated PCS bio-carbons

 

Like traditional charcoals the activated bio-carbons are an excellent filtration medium that can be used for water purification and other purification processes. The process of production is the same as the production of carbon microspheres except that the biomass can use a wider range of plant material including woody biomass containing significant amount of lignin.  The process takes the high purity PCS Biofuel and thermally anneals it to adjust the porosity and fixed carbon content. The fixed carbon content varies from 70-95% with ash content of less than 1-2%

 

 

Carbon Microspheres

 

PCS Technologies has developed methods to produce microspheres of a carbon-based polymer from biomass that has a fixed carbon content of about 50% and organic volatile matter of about 50%, the ash content is typically less than 0.1%.   The microspheres range from 1-15 microns in diameter with the average diameter in the 8-12 microns.  The surface area of this material is quite low, on the order of 5-10 meters2/gram. The volatiles, fixed carbon and surface area of the carbon microspheres can be controlled by thermal processing methods developed by PCS.

 

PCS’s thermal annealing method using both inert and reactive gases increases the surface area of the microspheres to greater than 1,000 meters2 / gram. The fixed carbon content can be adjusted from 50% up to 99.9+% depending on the desired properties. The ash content of the material is again typically less than 0.1%.   The annealing process also increases the conductivity of the material as evidenced by SEM and XPS spectroscopy.

 

The microspheres produced in this laboratory have shown a great affinity for the selective adsorption of gases. The specificity of adsorption is controlled via the addition of functional groups onto the carbon surface as well as controlling the micro-pore size on the surface of the microspheres.  In this laboratory we have obtained up to 7% adsorption of CO2 at 30oC and 1 atmosphere.