Influence of Carbonisation Temperature on the Surface Pore Characteristics of Acid-Treated Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch Activated Carbon

Abstract

Carbonisation process affects the surface physical and chemical properties of an activated carbon. Therefore, this work aims to investigate the influence of carbonisation temperature from 400 to 550°C during activation with 85% phosphoric acid (H3PO4) on the surface pore characteristics of activated carbon produced from oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) for nitric oxide (NO) removal from gas streams. Pore and morphological characterisation showed that EFB carbonised at 400°C (EFBC-400) is microporous and has a uniform pore structure with 98% micropore volume. Increasing carbonisation temperature resulted in pore enlargement from 2.8 to 4.7 nm and increment in pore heterogeneity and BET surface area from 215 to 759 m2/g. However, the NO breakthrough experiment indicated that EFBC-400 is more favourable for low-temperature NO removal, due to the importance of microporosity in adsorption of NO. Further study will look at the kinetics of NO removal and the adsorbent regeneration.

Potential of agro-industrial residues from the Amazon region to produce activated carbon

“…The use of residual biomass found on a large scale in the region itself can contribute to the reduction of production costs, which can facilitate access to the product. Some studies already point to the use of some of these biomasses through the production of activated carbon, however, they are carried out via chemical activation processes [ [23] , [24] , [25] , [26] , [27] , [28] , [29] , [30] ]. Therefore, this work has as a novelty the use of these residual biomasses through a simpler production process, which requires basically to heat produce AC, physical activation.…”