Surface Area of a Football Field in a Single Gram

Speaker : Dr Piotr Kowalczyk – Murdoch University

Venue    : Thu 2 June 2016 @ 4pm (Murdoch University, ECL1.031 – 1 floor below ECL2.031)

Disordered microporous carbonaceous materials are – mostly as activated carbons – used for a wide range of technical applications such as filters for gases, i.e. as molecular sieves for air purification, catalysts supports, adsorption heat pumps or electrodes in double layer capacitors. In different applications their open microporosity (pore size less than 2.0 nm) and huge specific surface area of micropores (up to about 1000 m²/g) are important characteristics.

Hence, knowledge of microporous structure of disordered activate carbons is extremely important for optimization of various technological processes. Carbon dioxide porosimetry with in-situ adsorption dilatometry can be used to probe the micropores (in particular, ultramicropores with pore size ranging from 0.22 to 0.7 nm). Here, molecular theory of gas adsorption and adsorption-induced deformation, experimental details, and theoretical description of the experimental adsorption and strain isotherms of carbon dioxide is presented.

In collaboration with:

Christian Balzer, Gudrun Reichenauer (Bavarian Center for Applied Energy Research, Germany)

Artur P. Terzyk, Piotr A. Gauden (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland)

Alexander V. Neimark (Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, United States)