Activated carbon fibre monoliths E. Vilaplana-Ortego, J. Alcan ˜iz-Monge, D. Cazorla-Amoro ´s, A. Linares-Solano * Dpto. Quı ´mica Inorga ´nica, Universidad de Alicante, E-03080 Alicante, Spain Received 31 January 2002; received in revised form 19 March 2002; accepted 20 March 2002 Abstract Activated carbon fibre monoliths were prepared by physical activation of carbon fibre monoliths derived from two kinds of pitch-based carbon fibre (CF) (carbon fibres from a coal tar pitch and carbon fibres derived from a petroleum pitch). The monoliths were conformed using a coal tar pitch binder. The carbon fibre monoliths and the activated carbon fibre monoliths were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and gas adsorption (i.e. N 2 at 77 K and CO 2 at 273 K). The results obtained reveal that monoliths perform a good activation process that produce a quite high development of microporosity (BET surface areas around 2600 m 2 /g and N 2 micropore volume of 1.23 cm 3 /g). On the other hand, it is remarkable that the activation process used allow to easily control the degree of activation and hence to select the adsorption capacities of the activated carbon fibre monoliths. D 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Petroleum pitch; Coal tar pitch; Carbon fibres; Monoliths; Activation 1. Introduction Recently, there has been a great interest in the development of new microporous monolithic materials from activated carbon (ACM), specially those based on fibres or bindered particles. Their applications in the field of gas treatment involve the preform of the materials in order to permit the circulation of gases and to avoid hydrodynamic problems. The structures mostly used are those based on activated carbon particle conglomerates. When carbon fibres (CF) are utilised, the preparation procedure of monolithic CF needs 0378-3820/02/$ - see front matter D 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0378-3820(02)00047-4 * Corresponding author. Fax: +34-965-90-34-54. E-mail address: linares@ua.es (A. Linares-Solano). www.elsevier.com/locate/fuproc Fuel Processing Technology 77 – 78 (2002) 445 – 451