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Abstract Biomass based wastes can generally be harmful if unused since it naturally degrade and emits green-house gases. In addition, the disposal of these wastes either by landfill or burning usually produces carbon dioxide. Both the green-house gases and the carbon dioxide will in turn accumulate in the eco-system and seriously impact the surrounding environment. Nevertheless, such wastes can be beneficial if thermally treated in controlled procedures. In line with this trend, this study is directed toward the conversion of solid wastes into activated carbons. Different parameters namely; type of chemical activator, temperature and time of reaction as well as the rate of gas flow, are studied during the production of activated carbon. New advances could be detected through the carbon production process in terms of generating activated species with an elevated surface area 1600 m2/g at notably reduced operating conditions. The functionalizing of the obtained activated carbon via loading tri-fluoro methane sulfonic acid, Ni nanoparticles and SO3Ag were then carried out to produce promising materials for catalytic applications. The structural, texture and thermal characteristics of the acquired carbons were determined via the different tools of analysis. In practical, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR), BET surface area, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) were utilized during the characterization of both blank and functionalized activated carbons. Tri-fluoro methane sulfonic acid-loaded activated carbon was next explored as a new heterogeneous catalyst to the thermal conversion of cellulose to mono-saccharides which are the feedstock for the bio-fuels production. Comparable conversion rates could be attained by the catalyst used in this study with a promising selectivity towards the glucose production. Moreover, Ni nanoparticles supported activated carbon was utilized for hydrogen separation after its pressed disk-like membrane. Different testing conditions were used. Particularly, temperatures between 25- 250 oC and pressure values from 5 to 25 psi were applied to investigate both the permeability and selectivity of the membrane. The efficiency of the membrane in the separation was tested via using mixtures of hydrogen and nitrogen with different compositions. In practical, this catalyst (disk-like membrane) has high selectivity toward hydrogen. In the last, SO3Ag was loaded on activated carbon to be used as an adsorbent for the selective removal of organosulfur compounds from petroleum-derived fuels. The optimum condition was catalyst weight 0.7 g, time 24hrs and at room temperature. The adsorbent has high efficacy toward reduction of sulfur content using bezothiophene as a model sulfur compound. |