Feasibility of fullerene waste as carbonaceous adsorbent

This note investigates using the waste soot generated in fullerene manufacture as an adsorbent. Both oven-dried and air-activated samples of waste soot are compared with three commercially available powdered activated carbons (PACs): Nuchar-SA, HDH, and Calgon-RC. Three model compounds were chosen for adsorbtion tests - TCE, Benzene, and Phenol - representing a small branched molecule, a small nonpolar ring molecule, and relatively polar ring molecule. Additionally, the effectiveness of total organic carbon (TOC) removal from wastewater was evaluated. Oven-dried soot performed poorly as compared to the commercial carbons, but activation of the waste soot for 60 min at 450°C in air resulted in an activated carbon (aFWS) with properties similar to those of commercially available PACs. The aFWS performed better than one would predict from the typical characterization measures of iodine number, molasses number, and methylene blue number. The data for phenol suggests some functional groups are created during the activation of the waste soot. These results show that large-scale fullerene manufacturing can be a zero-waste industry, because its primary waste product can be converted into a useful material.