Prepar ation and comparison of activated carbon from walnut shells using two procedures with phosphoric acid as activating agent

A series of experiments have been conducted to study the effects of different preparation procedure on characteristics of porosity in carbonized walnut shell char and activated carbon derived from carbonized walnut shell char. The results showed that activated carbon samples derived from two step procedure had low surface area, total volume as compared to this one step procedure. The BET surface area and total volume of activated carbon prepared fromchar and activated by H3PO4 were 1.9 m2/g, 14.1 m2/g and 16 m2/g, and 0.0005 cm3/g, 0.013 cm3/g and 0.0077 cm3/g, respectively. And the BET surface area and total volume of activated carbon prepared from one step chemical activation by H3PO4 was 1677 m2/g and 0.88cm3/g.From the results, it was concluded that we can produce high surface area activated carbons from walnut shells using chemical activation (in one step) by proper selections of carbonization temperature and activation time

Keywords:

Activated carbon , chemical activation , surface area