Effects of microstructure of precursors on characteristics of pitch based activated carbons

In this paper, isotropic pitch and anisotropic pitch with similar physical properties were chose to be precursors for activated carbons. Chemical activations with same conditions were carried out and the characteristic difference of activated carbons from different pitch precursors was discussed. As a result, isotropic pitch with more noncrystallite carbon atoms or edge carbon atoms on the microstructural defects had more reactive ability and more pores, 1.36 cm3/g, were manufactured through sufficient chemical activation. However, the crystallites of anisotropic pitch had larger size and good tropism so that the activations mostly reacted on the interspaces of carbonaceous layers. Therefore, isotropic pitch based activated carbon with sufficient chemical activation had higher specific surface area (2913) m2/g and better iodine adsorption value (2630 mg/g).