Characterization of Activated Carbon from Coconut Shell (Cocos nucifera) through Chemical Activation Process
Musthofa Lutfi (a*), Hanafi(a), Bambang Susilo(a), Joko Prasetyo (a), Sandra Sandra(a), Uke Prajogo(b)

a)Department of Agricultural Engineering - Brawijaya University, Malang, 65145 Indonesia
*lutfi[at]ub.ac.id
b)Departement of Management, Malangkucecwara School of Economics, Malang, 65145, Indonesia

Abstract

Activated carbon is a material that widely used in industries as an adsorbent and purifying material. Moreover, activated carbon had an important role to improve product quality. Coconut shell has many advantages to be used as activated carbon sources as it has both a high mechanical strength and high pore space. This research aims to explore coconut shell as a activated carbon material through an immersion in phosphoric acid solution. The method is activation process in different condition i.e. H3PO4 concentration and immersion time i.e 1 M, 2 M, 3 M, 4 M and 5 M and immersion time 1 hour, 3 hour, 5 hour, 7 hour and 9 hour. The activated carbon characters evaluated were iodine number, density, water content and ash content. It could be concluded that the combination of 3M H3PO4 concentration with 9 hour immersion time was the best combination for producing activated carbon from coconut shell. It has the characters of iodine number, density, water content and ash content are 248.5811 mg/g, 1.3613 g/ml, 5.3628% and 2.1239% respectively. The phosphate acid concentration and the immersion time gave an actual effect on the activated carbon character such as iodine number, density, water content and ash content.

Keywords: H3PO4 concentration, Immersion time, Iodine number, Carbon density

Topic: INDUSTRIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOPROCESSING