Investigation of the coffee waste-derived adsorbent

Due to the rapid development in the industrial sector, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere has increased by 30% over the years. Hence, low-cost activated carbon derived from coffee waste for the application of carbon capture and sequestration technology has been proposed in curbing the devastating effect cause by CO₂ emission. The activated carbon was treated with different chemical activating agent such as potassium hydroxide and potassium carbonate at two different chemical concentration which were 20 and 50 wt. %, in order to study the effect of the different chemical agent and concentration towards the evolution of microporosity structure and surface chemistry that is desired to be used in CO2 adsorption application. A series of characterization were performed on the activated carbon by using Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The result shows that 50 wt. % of potassium carbonate activation appears to be the best combination for the structural development and higher CO₂ adsorption performance.