Cost-effective activated carbons for CO₂ adsorption were developed from molasses using H₂SO₄, H₃PO₄, HCl, NaOH, and KOH as activating agents. At the temperature of 0 °C and a pressure of 1 bar, CO₂ adsorption equal to 5.18 mmol/g was achieved over activated carbon obtained by KOH activation. The excellent CO₂ adsorption of M-KOH can be attributed to its high microporosity. However, activated carbon prepared using HCl showed quite high CO₂ adsorption while having very low microporosity. The absence of acid species on the surface promotes CO₂ adsorption over M-HCl. The pore size ranges that are important for CO₂ adsorption at different temperatures were estimated. The higher the adsorption temperature, the more crucial smaller pores were. For 1 bar pressure and temperatures of 0, 10, 20, and 30 °C, the most important were pores equal and below: 0.733, 0.733, 0.679, and 0.536 nm, respectively.

Activated carbons with different textural characteristic were derived by the chemical activation of raw beet molasses with solid KOH, while the activation temperature was changed in the range 650 °C to 800 °C. The adsorption of CO₂ on activated carbons was investigated. Langmuir, Freundlich, Sips, Toth, Unilan, Fritz-Schlunder, Radke-Prausnitz, Temkin-Pyzhev, Dubinin-Radushkevich, and Jovanovich equations were selected to fit the experimental data of CO₂ adsorption. An error analysis (the sum of the squares of errors, the hybrid fractional error function, the average relative error, the Marquardt’s percent standard deviation, and the sum of the absolute errors) was conducted to examine the effect of using various error standards for the isotherm model parameter calculation. The best fit was observed to the Radke-Prausnitz model.

This work presents studies on the preparation of porous carbon materials from waste biomass in the form of orange peels, coffee grounds, and sunflower seed husks. The preparation of activated carbons from these three waste materials involved activation with KOH followed by carbonization at 800 °C in an N₂ atmosphere. This way of obtaining the activated carbons is very simple and requires the application of only two reactants. Thus, this method is cheap, and it does not generate much chemical waste. The obtained activated carbons were characterized by XRD, SEM, XPS, and XRF methods. Moreover, the textural properties, acidity, and catalytic activity of these materials were descried. During catalytic tests carried out in the alpha-pinene isomerization process (the use of the activated carbons thus obtained in the process of alpha-pinene isomerization has not been described so far), the most active were activated carbons obtained from coffee grounds and orange peels. Generally, the catalytic activity of the obtained materials depended on the pore size, and the most active activated carbons had more pores with sizes of 0.7–1.0 and 1.1–1.4 nm. Moreover, the presence of potassium and chlorine ions in the pores may also be of key importance for the alpha-pinene isomerization process. On the other hand, the acidity of the surface of the tested active carbons did not affect their catalytic activity. The most favorable conditions for carrying out the alpha-pinene isomerization process were the same for the three tested activated carbons: temperature 160 °C, amount of the catalyst 5 wt.%, and reaction time 3 h. Kinetic studies were also carried out for the three tested catalysts. These studies showed that the isomerization over activated carbons from orange peels, coffee grounds, and sunflower seed husks is a first-order reaction.

DT0-activated carbons modified with HCl and HNO₃ acids, which were used for the first time in the catalytic process of alpha-pinene isomerization, are presented in this study. The carbon materials DT0, DT0_HCl, DT0_HNO₃, and DT0_HCl_HNO₃ were examined with the following methods: XRF, SEM, EDX, XPS, FT-IR, XRD, and N₂ adsorption at −196 °C. It was shown that DT0_HCl_HNO₃-activated carbon was the most active material in the alpha-pinene isomerization process. Detailed studies of alpha-pinene isomerization were carried out over this carbon by changing the reaction parameters such as time (5–180 min) and temperature (60–175 °C). The 100% conversion of alpha-pinene was achieved at the temperature of 160 °C and catalyst content of 5 wt% after 3 h over the DT0_HCl_HNO₃ catalyst. Camphene and limonene were the main products of the alpha-pinene isomerization reaction.

The work presents the results of studies on α-pinene oxidation over the TS-1 catalysts with different Ti content (in wt%): TS-1_1 (9.92), TS-1_2 (5.42), TS-1_3 (3.39) and TS-1_4 (3.08). No solvent was used in the oxidation studies, and molecular oxygen was used as the oxidizing agent. The effect of titanium content in the TS-1 catalyst, temperature, reaction time and amount of the catalyst in the reaction mixture on the conversion of α-pinene and the selectivities of appropriate products was investigated. It was found that it is most advantageous to carry out the process of α-pinene oxidation in the presence of the TS-1 catalyst with the titanium content of 5.42 wt% (TS-1_2), at the temperature of 85 °C, for 6 h and with the catalyst TS-1 content in the reaction mixture of 1 wt%. Under these conditions the conversion of α-pinene amounted to 34 mol%, and the selectivities of main products of α-pinene oxidation process were: α-pinene oxide (29 mol%), verbenol (15 mol%) and verbenone (12 mol%). In smaller quantities also campholenic aldehyde, trans-pinocarveol, myrtenal, myrtenol, L-carveol, carvone and 1,2-pinanediol were also formed. These products are of great practical importance in food, cosmetics, perfumery and medicine industries. Kinetic studies were also performed for the studied process.