Novel activated carbon fibre matting from biomass fibre waste

Waste biomass flax fibre was manufactured into a non-woven matting material. The fibrous matting was pyrolysed and chemically activated using potassium hydroxide to produce an activated carbon matting. Changes in the activation process conditions showed that increases in chemical loading, activation time and activation temperature generally resulted in greater pore volumes and higher surface areas but a reduction in carbon yield. The preparation temperature of the char precursors showed that lower temperature chars produced carbons with higher porosity but lower yield than chars produced at higher temperatures. The end product activated carbon matting had surface areas of up to 1800 m²/g with a mainly microporous size distribution (pores of <2 nm diameter), but the process conditions could be manipulated to produce a highly microporous or a mixture of microporous and mesoporous (2–50 nm pore diameters) activated carbon. The activated carbon matting characteristics can therefore be altered to produce adsorption properties tailored to a particular pollutant. The non-woven production process may be altered to produce a non-woven matting material of almost any design, width and thickness; consequently, an activated carbon fibrous matting material, also of any design, width and thickness, can be produced.