Effect of chemical treatment on production of activated carbon from Cocos Nucifera L. (coconut) shell using microwave irradiation

Activated carbon (AC) has attracted attention among researchers due to special properties such as high porosity, highly adsorption and low cost. In this research, activated carbon has been successfully produced from the coconut shell by using the chemical activation which are zinc chloride (ZnCl2), phosphoric acid (H3PO4)and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) as the activating agent. The optimum parameter for the power of microwave radiation used was 380 W, impregnation ratio of activating agent to char was 3: 1 for H3PO4, 2:1 for NaOH, and for 1:1ZnCl2 while concentration of each activating agents was 0.5M. The activation time that were implemented was 10 minutes using microwave radiation method. All samples then characterized using, FTIR, XRD and TGA in order to determine the functional groups, composition and element and weight loss of the activated carbon. The XRD results showed that the activated carbon that had been produced were amorphous. In the FTIR – ATR , the there were C = C bonds and phenyl ring existed in the activated carbons. In TGA results, it indicated that the activated carbon has very high resistant to weight loss compared to char, which range temperature were same. The result showed that phosphoric acid has the most significant effect on the synthesized AC properties since the moisture content was low and the highest yield percentage.