THE EFFECT OF CARBONIZATION TEMPERATURE ON QUALITY OF ACTIVATED CARBON PRODUCED FROM CORNCOBS

Abstract

The production of activated carbon from agricultural waste will contribute to minimizing environmental pollution caused by the waste. The quality of activated carbon is influenced by many factors such as raw material quality, temperature, chemical and time of activated process. The aim of this study was to investigate the quality of activated carbon produced by corncobs in the different carbonization temperatures. The corncob was carbonized in inert atmosphere condition in three temperature ranges: 200 ⁰C; 300 ⁰C and 400 ⁰C. The activated carbon products analyzed some indexes: specific weight, iodine adsorption index, BET surface area and the ability adsorption organic matter through the COD index in wastewater before and after adsorption. The results indicated that activated carbon produced from corncobs at 400 ⁰C have the better quality than at 300 ⁰C and 200 ⁰C. Namely, it has the lowest specific weight with 0.792 ± 0.021 g/cm³; iodine adsorption index and BET surface are the highest with 500.309 ± 0.21 mg/g and 208.86 m²/g respectively. Besides, the COD absorbability in wastewater of this activated carbon is 30.254%, while this value for activated carbon from corncobs at 200 ⁰C and 300 ⁰C carbonization temperature was only 12.195% and 17.073%.