Effect of activation time the chicken feather activated carbon on surface area of pores: Candidate for hydrogen storage application

Abstract

The use of renewable energy such as hydrogen gas as fuel is still very lacking due to difficulties of its storage. Hydrogen storage material is focused on developing porous material. Chicken feather is one of the organic wastes that can be used as porous activated carbon. The chicken feather activated carbon made in powder and briquette form. The activation process was carried out physically with variation in time 30, 60 and 90 minutes, temperature 500°C and flow rate of nitrogen 0.3 l/minute. The carbon content from carbonization of chicken feathers is 62.85% using ultimate analysis. The activated carbon analysis with Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) show that surface area for powder sample before activation is 0 m2/g and with activation time 30, 60 and 90 minutes is 79.28 m2/g, 128.28 m2/g and 332.49 m2/g, respectively. The surface area for briquette sample before activation is 20 m2/g and with activation time 30, 60 and 90 minutes is 741.37 m2/g, 150.55 m2/g and 162.65 m2/g, respectively. The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) results show that pores appear on the briquette sample are much more and more visible than the powder sample. The pore surface area of the briquette sample is inversely proportional to the increase of activation time. The longer the activation time the pore surface area of the briquette sample decreases. While for powder samples vice versa.