Preparation and properties of activated carbon fabric from acrylic fabric waste

Abstract With the aim of developing a cheap but high performance activated carbon fabric, acrylic fabric wastes were reused to produce an activated carbon fabric. The precursor fabric was stabilized in the condition of as-obtained at 250°C for 5 h to get the degree of stabilization of 79%. The stabilized fabric was subsequently carbonized with stepwise sequential heat treatment, denoted as the sequential multistage carbonization technique, followed by activation with steam. The specific surface area and the total pore volume changed little through stabilization and sequential multistage carbonization while the total weight loss increased almost linearly with the increase of heat treatment temperature. When the carbonized fabric was activated at 900°C for 5 min, both the specific surface area and the total pore volume increased abruptly to 2400 m2/g and 1.15 cm3/g, respectively. We also obtained the iodine number of 1800 mg/g, methylene blue number of 300 mg/g, and benzene adsorptivity of about 54%. All these performances of the prepared PAN-based ACFs are superior to those of conventional commercial PAN-based ACFs.