Upcycling of waste polyethylene terephthalate plastic bottles into porous carbon for CF adsorption.

Thermo-chemical processes for converting plastic wastes into useful materials are considered promising technologies to mitigate the environmental pollution caused by plastic wastes. In this study, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic wastes were used to develop cost-effective and value-added porous carbons; the developed porous carbons were subsequently tested for capturing CF, a greenhouse gas with a high global-warming potential. The activation temperature was varied from 600 °C to 1000 °C and the mass ratio of KOH/carbon ranged from 1 to 3 in the preparation process and their effects on the textural properties and CF-capture performance of the PET plastic waste-derived porous carbons were investigated. The CF-adsorption uptake was dictated by the specific surface area and pore volume of narrow micropores less than 0.9 nm in diameter. PET-K(2)700, which was developed by KOH activation at 700 °C and KOH/carbon mass ratio of 2, showed the highest CF-adsorption uptake of 2.43 mmol g at 25 °C and 1 atm. Also, the CF-adsorption data were fitted well with the Langmuir isotherm model and pseudo second-order kinetic model. The PET plastic waste-derived porous carbons exhibited a high CF uptake, good CF/N selectivity at relatively low CF pressures, easy regeneration, rapid adsorption/desorption kinetics, and excellent recyclability, which are promising for practical CF-capture applications.