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.