Dehydration Studies of Biomass Resources for Activated Carbon Production Using BET and XRD Techniques

Abstract

Activated carbon is produced from high cellulose containing biomass such as filter paper (FP), bamboo waste and palm empty fruit bunches (EFB) by dehydrating agent, concentrated sulfuric acid (H 2 SO 4 ). At room temperature, treatment of H 2 SO 4 is removed all the water molecules in the biomass and leaving only porous carbon without emitting any gaseous by-products. After activation by carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) and X-ray Diffractometer (XRD) analysis showed the bamboo activated carbon (BAC) has good properties with higher surface area (862.76 m 2 /g), micropore area (463.62 m 2 /g) and some crystalline (graphite) phase formation. Acid treatment of biomass has shown high carbon content for FP (85.30%), bamboo (77.72%) and EFB (76.55%), and yield obtained was 47.85 wt.% (FP), 62.4 wt.% (bamboo) and 55.4 wt.% (EFB) by using dehydration method.