Waste floral foam to nanoporous activated carbon for efficient CO2 capture: An investigation on the property-performance correlation of KOH impregnation

The efficient CO₂ capture requires engineering a low-cost, highly efficient adsorbent. Herein, the upcycling of waste floral foam into chemically activated nanoporous carbon (CANC) is reported. The implications of the impregnation ratio of KOH on the porosity, surface functionality of CANC, and its role in CO₂ capture are examined and discussed. The optimized sample, CANC-2 (SSA 1043 m²/g), with a large ultra-micropore volume and higher oxygen and nitrogen content, demonstrates 3.71 mmol/g CO₂ capture capacity at 15 ℃ and 1 atm. The framework provided here offers a technique for tuning the attributes of nanoporous carbon favorable for CO₂ capture. Ultimately, the pollution control of solid polymeric waste can be done by upcycling it into value-added products which further utilized in environmental applications.