Volume 11 Issue 2
May  2026
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Hun-Seung Jeong, Byung-Joo Kim. Greenhouse gas recovery performance of chitin-derived porous carbons from waste chitinous biomass[J]. Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts, 2026, 11(2): 100236. doi: 10.1016/j.jobab.2026.100236
Citation: Hun-Seung Jeong, Byung-Joo Kim. Greenhouse gas recovery performance of chitin-derived porous carbons from waste chitinous biomass[J]. Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts, 2026, 11(2): 100236. doi: 10.1016/j.jobab.2026.100236

Greenhouse gas recovery performance of chitin-derived porous carbons from waste chitinous biomass

doi: 10.1016/j.jobab.2026.100236
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  • Corresponding author: E-mail address: kimbyungjoo@jj.ac.kr (B.-J. Kim)
  • Received Date: 2025-10-29
  • Accepted Date: 2026-01-18
  • Rev Recd Date: 2025-12-23
  • Available Online: 2026-01-30
  • Publish Date: 2026-05-01
  • This work upcycled waste chitin-based shells into porous carbons via a chemical-free steam activation route using only N2 and water vapor, and investigated their adsorption/desorption behaviors toward the greenhouse gas n-butane. The textural and structural properties of chitin-based porous carbons (Ch-PCs) were characterized by N2 adsorption-desorption, X-ray diffraction, and field-emission scanning electron microscopy. The n-butane working capacity (butane activity and retentivity) was also evaluated. The Ch-PCs exhibited specific surface areas of 720–1350 m2/g and total pore volumes of 0.53–1.10 cm3/g, with micropore volumes of 0.25–0.48 cm3/g and mesopore volumes of 0.28–0.62 cm3/g. As the activation time increased, the n-butane adsorption capacity increased from 22.3% to 43.6%, while the retentivity (residual adsorption) decreased from 16.9% to 9.2%. The n-butane adsorption/desorption behaviors were strongly correlated with the pore structure of the Ch-PCs. The adsorption capacity showed a strong relationship with the pore size of 1.0–3.0 nm, whereas the retentivity was mainly associated with the pore size of 3.0–5.0 nm. These findings demonstrated that steam-activated chitin-derived carbons, prepared from waste biomass by a chemical-free activation process, could serve as promising bio-based adsorbents for efficient greenhouse gas capture and recovery.

     

  • Data availability
    All original contributions presented in this study are included in the article/supplementary material. Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding authors.
    Author contributions
    Conceptualization: Byung-Joo Kim. Data curation: Hun-Seung Jeong, Byung-Joo Kim. Formal analysis: Hun-Seung Jeong. Funding acquisition: Byung-Joo Kim. Investigation: Hun-Seung Jeong. Methodology: Hun-Seung Jeong, Byung-Joo Kim. Project administration: Byung-Joo Kim. Resources: Byung-Joo Kim. Software: Hun-Seung Jeong. Supervision: Byung-Joo Kim. Validation: Hun-Seung Jeong, Byung-Joo Kim. Visualization: Hun-Seung Jeong. Writing-original draft: Hun-Seung Jeong. Writing-review and editing: Hun-Seung Jeong, Byung-Joo Kim.
    Declaration of competing interest
    The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
    Supplementary materials
    Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.jobab.2026.100236.
    Peer review under the responsibility of Editorial Office of Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts.
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