Utilization of durian shell waste in the preparation of activated carbon by using K2CO3as chemical activator

Abstract

Activated carbon is one of the solutions to overcome the cigarette smoke problem where durian shell waste is chosen as the base material. Durian shell waste is chosen because it has a high cellulose, lignin and starch content, plus its production reaches 746.805 thousand tons per year. Activated carbon from Durian shell waste will be firstly processed with cleaning, drying, and semi-carbonizing at 200°C for 3 hours with 12.5% yield. The step continued with chemical activation by K2CO3 with variations in impregnation, which are 1:1, 3:2, and 2:1. Next, the activated carbon is physically activated by using a temperature of 600°C with N2 stream of 200 ml/min. Activated carbon as a result of activation and modified activated carbon are then characterized by Iodine Number test and SEM test. As a result, activated carbon with K2CO3 3:2 had the largest iodine number with 414.43 mg/g and after it was physically activated, the 3:2 variation was still had the largest iodine number with 579.49 mg/g.