Authors
Joseph F Olorunyomi, Shinen Yu, Lison Shaju, Nandish Hosadoddi Srikantamurthy, Jianjin Ruan, Jeremy D Landry, Xavier Mulet, Ravichandar Babarao
Published in
Global challenges (Hoboken, NJ). Volume 10. Issue 10. Pages e70171. Epub Oct 24, 2026.
Abstract
Cigarette butts are a persistent plastic-rich waste stream commonly disposed of in landfill, creating environmental and resource-recovery challenges. Their cellulose-acetate-rich filters and organic components, however, provide a potential precursor for waste-derived porous carbons. Here, whole cigarette-butt (WCB) waste was converted into hierarchical porous carbons by carbonization followed by Na2CO3 activation. The pore structure was tuned from poorly developed porosity to a micro-mesoporous network whose development varied with Na2CO3 loading. Pore development increased across the WCB-x series up to 83 wt.% Na2CO3, beyond which over-activation reduced the effective adsorption network. WCB-83, the highest-uptake sample within the Na2CO3 series, combined a specific surface area of 750 m2 g- 1 with the micropore volume of 0.24 cm3 g- 1, delivering 3.0 mmol g- 1 CO2 at 273 K and 1 bar. This exceeded both over-activated WCB-91 (2.6 mmol g- 1) and the NaOH-activated counterpart WCB-OH-83 (1.2 mmol g- 1). At 298 K, WCB-83 adsorbed 0.3 mmol g- 1 CO2 at 0.15 bar and 1.0 mmol g- 1 at 1 bar. Temperature-dependent adsorption gave apparent isosteric heats of approximately 53 to 59 kJ mol- 1, while Ideal Adsorbed Solution Theory (IAST) -predicted CO2/N2 selectivity reached 120. This work demonstrates a waste-valorization strategy for converting cigarette-butt waste into CO2-selective hierarchical carbon adsorbents.
PMID:
42927295
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 25 Oct 2026.
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