Effects of pyrolysis conditions on the porous structure construction of mesoporous charred carbon from used cigarette filters

Abstract

One-step pyrolysis was applied to synthesize mesoporous charred carbon from used cigarette filters. Proximate analysis suggested that cigarette filters are decent carbon precursors due to their moderate carbon (around 11 %) and low ash (around 0.1 %) contents. To investigate the effects of pyrolysis parameters on porous surface area, a full factorial design of experiment including heating rate, soaking time and pyrolysis temperature was used with each factor at three levels. The analysis of variance revealed that the temperature and heating rate had the most significant effects on total surface area of the synthesized carbon. Response surface model (RSM) was applied to best fit a surface through the experimental data. It was seen that the quadratic RSM model with a reasonable R2 value of 63 % was the best developed model. The maximum BET surface area (597 m2/g) was reached at a pyrolysis temperature of 900 °C when the precursor was heated at 5 °C/min and hold at this temperature for 3 h. The produced N2 adsorption–desorption isotherm showed a certain degree of mesoporosity in the charred carbon with an average pore size of 3.32 nm calculated by Barrett–Joyner–Halenda method. Scanning electron microscopy also showed the presence of macroporosity on the charred carbon surface. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy revealed the presence of acidic surface functional groups such as carboxyl and phenol which were accordingly confirmed by Boehm titration. In addition, Boehm titration showed that the produced carbon’s surface was more acidic than basic in nature.