Author details

Dassanayake et al. investigated the preparation of activated carbon monoliths derived from cellulose-based aerogel (aerocellulose) and its CO2 adsorption properties at low and ambient temperatures [117]. The activated carbon prepared from

these materials were 5.8 mmol/g of CO2 at 0°C and 1 atm and 3.7 mmol/g of CO2 at 25°C and 1.2 atm. They also reported the synthesis and CO2 adsorption of a series of amidoxime (AO)-functionalized microcrystalline (MCC) and nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC)-mesoporous silica composites at ambient and elevated temperatures [115, 118]. They reported the CO2 sorption capacities of MCC-AO composites in the range of 0.40–1.27 and 2.84–3.85 mmol/g at ambient (25°C, 1.2 atm) and elevated temperatures (120°C, 1.0 atm), respectively. Whereas, NCC-AO composites which showed highest CO2 uptakes of 3.30 mmol/g at 25°C (1.2 atm) and 5.54 mmol/g at 120°C (1 atm), respectively. Both MCC-AO and NCC-AO composites displayed a good recyclability and stability after 10 successive adsorption/desorption cycles with negligible losses of the sorption capacity. Shehaqui et al. reported the direct CO2 capture from air onto nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC)-polyethylenimine (PEI) foams [119]. They demonstrated the impact of both PEI and relative humidity (RH) on the CO2 capture under atmospheric conditions with CO2 concentration of 400 ppm. At 80% RH and PEI content of 44 wt%, a CO2 uptake of 2.22 mmol/g

Dassanayake and coworkers also studied the CO2 adsorption on activated carbon prepared by carbonization and KOH activation of chitin aerogels [39]. Their material showed CO2 adsorption capacities of 5.02 mmol/g at 0°C and 3.44 mmol/g at 25° C under ambient pressure of 1 atm. Eftaiha et al. investigated the CO2 adsorption by a chitin-acetate (CA)/dimethyl sulfoxide (DMO) binary system and reported the CO2 uptake of 3.63 mmol/g at 3.95 atm and 0°C [120]. Fujiki and Yogo investigated CO2 adsorption capacities of nitrogen-doped activated carbons prepared from chitosan at two different pressure conditions; namely 0.15 and 0.99 atm at 25°C [121]. They reported CO2 adsorption capacities of 1.6 mmol/g at 0.15 atm and 4.9 mmol/g at 0.99 atm for their material. Alhwaige et al. reported the preparation of montmorillonite (MMT) reinforced bio-based chitosan-polybenzoxazine (CTS-PBZ) composite carbon aerogels and their ability to capture CO2 [122]. MMT-CTS-PBZ composite carbon aerogels showed a maximum CO2 adsorption of 5.72 mmol/g

Table 1 summarizes the main applications of biopolymer-based materials for

Biopolymers and biopolymer-based materials have been widely investigated for

various sorption applications due to their excellent adsorption capacities, easy functionalization, relative abundance, green, sustainable, biodegradable, low cost, and environmental benign properties. In this chapter, we presented the properties, processing, characterization and sorption applications of three most commonly studied natural polysaccharides, namely cellulose, chitin and chitosan. Recent developments of cellulose, chitin and chitosan-based materials in organic dye removal, heavy metals removal, oil and solvent spillage cleanup, and CO2 adsorp-

/g, a total pore volume of

/g. The physical CO2 uptakes for

aerocellulose exhibited a specific surface area of 753 m<sup>2</sup>

Advanced Sorption Process Applications

/g, and a micropore volume of 0.27 cm3

was achieved with a stability over five repetitive cycles.

with multi-cyclic adsorption-desorption stability.

tion have been extensively discussed.

6. Conclusion

18

pollutants removal from water and sorption of CO2.

0.72 cm3

Rohan S. Dassanayake, Sanjit Acharya and Noureddine Abidi\* Department of Plant and Soil Science, Fiber and Biopolymer Research Institute, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA

\*Address all correspondence to: noureddine.abidi@ttu.edu

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
