Preparation and Characterization of Activated Carbon from Household Waste Foods

Abstract

Waste food residues are considered as suitable raw materials for the production of low cost adsorbents. In this work, activated carbons was perpetrating from household waste food (orange peels, banana peels, walnut shells, olive stones and their mixture). Chemical carbonization at 500˚C for 1.5hr was used to prepare carbons and their activation by KOH and CaCl2 solutions for 24h. Then added 0.1g of activated carbons to the solution of blue dye prepared laboratory to demonstrate the activation of the types of activated carbons prepared to remove the blue dye. The results indicated that characteristics (yield, burn off, density, moisture content, ash content, pore volume, porosity percent, Iodine number, methyl blue number and removal percent of methyl blue) for all activated carbons were compared with commercial activated carbon. It has been found that activated carbon from orange peels and mixtures activated with CaCl2 had the best adsorption properties reach to the (80, 77.5) % removal blue dye respectively and iodine numbers (741, 735) mg/g . This low coast activated carbons can be used for wastewater treatment. Keywords