Characterization of pore size distributions on carbonaceous adsorbents by DFT Original Research Article

Carbonaceous adsorbents are amorphous graphitic carbon, consisting of SP2 hexagonal carbon layers with different sizes of pores ranging from micropores to macropores. Nitrogen adsorption is a standard tool for determination of pore size distribution (PSD). In the present work, we carried out extensive adsorption studies of a series of carbonaceous adsorbents including PAN-based activated carbon fibers, coal activated carbon and pitch carbon bead. The PSDs of samples studied were calculated by employing the regularization method according to Density Functional Theory (DFT). It was shown that adsorption measurement provided profound insight into the structural heterogeneity of carbonaceous adsorbents.