Djefry Tani, Bambang Setiaji, Wega Trisunaryanti, Akhmad Syoufian
The study on the preparation and preparation of activated carbon from coconut shell charcoal via the combined chemical (ZnCl2) and physical (CO2) activations has been carried out. This study was aimed to study the chemical change occurred during the activation. The charcoal was immersed in the solution of ZnCl2, where the concentration of solution (0.5-2.0 M) and the immersion time (12-24 h) were varied. Then, the physical activation was carried out at 800°C with the variation of time (30-150 min) and it was streamed using CO2 (20 mL/min) for 2 h. Characterization of the activated carbon include FTIR, SEM, BET and XRD analyses. The FTIR analysis showed that the surface of the activated carbon had the functional groups of OH, C-H and C-O. The XRD analysis showed that the activated carbon was amorphous. The SEM analysis showed that the pore was more porous, the pore diameter increased by the increasing of activation time. The activated carbon with the best quality was obtained with the condition of concentration of ZnCl2 of 1.5 M, immersion time of 24 h and activation time of 120 min. At such condition, the activated carbon had the surface area (BET) of 359.286 m2g-1, pore volume of 1.984 × 10-1 cm3g-1 and average pore radii of 11.04 Å. © Research India Publications.
Chemistry Dept. Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Manado State University, Indonesia; Chemistry Dept. Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia