Surface and Hydrogen Sorption Characteristics of Various Activated Carbons Developed from Rat Coal Mine (Zonguldak) and Anthracite

Activated carbon samples were developed from coal samples obtained from a coal mine, rat (Zonguldak, Turkey) and anthracite (Siberia, Russia), applying pyrolysis in a temperature range of 600–900°C under N2 flow, and activation using chemical agents such as KOH, NH4Cl, ZnCl2 at 650°C. Nitrogen adsorption at low temperature (77 K) was used to characterize the activated carbon samples, and their pore structure properties including pore volume, pore diameter and pore size distribution were determined by means of the t-plots and DFT methods. The surface area values were higher for rat coal samples than for anthracite one, and for the rat coal samples treated with KOH + NH4Cl + ZnCl2 at 650°C [Rat650(2)] there are highest surface area and total pore volume, 315.6 m2·g−1 and 0.156 ml·g−1, respectively. The highest value of the hydrogen sorption capacity was found as 0.71% (by mass) for the rat coal sample obtained by KOH + ZnCl2 treatment at 650°C [Rat650(1)].