Optimization of Active Carbonaceous Material Obtained by Low Hydrothermal Carbonization of Plane Tree Seed with H3PO4

Abstract

Activated carbons (ACs) were successfully prepared using plane tree seed (PTS) as a cheap and renewable raw material. The plane tree seeds were firstly treated combining magnetic (MM) and ultrasonic mixing (USM) during 0.5, 1 and 3 h in 1 M, 3 M and 6 M of H3PO4 solutions, and then activated at 260 °C during 20 h (low temperature hydrothermal carbonization–low HTC) in above mentioned solutions of the same molarity. The influence of combined mixing and activation processes on physical, structural and morphological properties, and their optimization was studied by X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), Raman spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis.