Biochar from Waste Vineyard Pruning as a CO2 Sorbent in Pressure Swing Adsorption: Experimental and Modeling Study

Vineyard pruning is an agro-industrial waste largely available in Italy. In this work, biochar from vineyard pruning pellets (previously produced by pyro-gasification at two Equivalence Ratios (ER)) was chemically activated and tested as a CO2 sorbent by pressure swing adsorption (PSA), at room temperature and 5, 7, or 9 bara (P). As-received and activated biochar samples showed CO2-sorption capacities (Y) comparable to or even higher than those of reference sorbents, emerging as good candidates for future PSA scale-up studies. A 23 factorial design was adopted to study the dependency of measured Y on factors P, ER, and "activation". Empirical linear regression models and Langmuir adsorption isotherms were obtained from Y experimental data. The extrapolation of the empirical model gave Y values with admissible deviations (lower than +/- 5%) from the Langmuir isotherm in the range of 4-11 bara. The proposed model is a good predictive tool for future PSA scale-up studies.