2.4.

4 Activated carbon

Activated carbon is the most widely used adsorbent in the industrial application

The most widely used adsorbent for industrial applications is activated carbon (Ho,
2004). It is a well-known adsorbent due to its extended surface area, microporous
Structure, high adsorption capacity and high degree of surface reactivity (Satyawali
and Balakrishnan, 2008). The structure consists of a distorted three dimensional
array of aromatic sheets and strips of primary hexagonal graphic crystallites
(Stoeckli, 1990). This structure creates angular pores between the sheets of
molecular dimensions which give rise to many of the useful adsorption properties of
activated carbon (Stoeckli, 1990; Innes et al., 1989). Pore size ranges from 1 nm to
1000 nm, and the extensive porosity is responsible for the high surface area of the
material usually 500 - 1500 m2/g (Cooney, 1980). Any carbon material can be used
to make activated carbon; however, commercial activated carbon is manufactured
from only a few carbon sources; wood, peat, coal, oil products, nut shells and pits
(Davidson et al., 1968). Wood products and low-grade coal have some original
porosity and are easier to activate than dense materials such as anthracite (Sun et al.,
1997).
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Activated carbon manufacturing consists of a charring or carbonization step in which
most of the non-carbon material is volatilized by pyrolysis (usually between 500 and
750°C). The weight loss is usually 60 to 70% and some CO2 is volatilized (Sun et al.,
1997; Diaz-Teran et al., 2001). The fine pore structure is formed in an activation
process. In gas activation, an oxidizing agent such as CO2 or steam is used at high
temperature to erode pores into the char. In chemical activation, the char is
impregnated with a chemical and then fired to high temperatures (usually 800 to
1000°C). The activating chemical corrodes the carbon to form the pore structure and
they are usually strong acids, bases or corrosives (phosphoric acid, sulfuric acid,
potassium hydroxide, zinc chloride, potassium sulfide, or potassium thiocyanate)
(Mozammel et al., 2002). The final pore structure depends on the nature of the
starting material and the activation process (Diaz-Teran et al., 2001). Materials with
an original pore structure like wood take less processing than a denser and isotropic
material like coal or tar. Impurity amounts are usually higher in the less carbon dense
materials.
According to the IUPAC definitions the pore sizes of activated carbon can roughly be
classified as micropores (< 2 nm), mesopores (2 - 50 nm) and macropores (> 50 nm)
(Stoeckli et al., 2002). The macropores act as transport pathways, through which the
adsorptive molecules travel to the mesopores, from where they finally enter the
micropores. Thus, macro- and mesopores can generally be regarded as the highways
into the carbon particle, and are crucial for kinetics. The micropores usually
constitute the largest proportion of the internal surface of the activated carbon and
contribute most to the total pore volume (Rodriguez-Reinoso and Linares-Solano,
1989).
Activated carbon has both chemical and physical effects on the substance where it is
used as a treatment agent. Activity can be separated into adsorption, mechanical
filtration, ion exchange and surface oxidation. Adsorption is the most studied of
these properties in activated carbon (Cheremisinoff and Morresi, 1978). Heavy metal
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removal by adsorption using commercial activated carbon has been widely used.
However, high costs of activated carbon and 10-15% loss during regeneration makes
its use prohibitive in the developing countries like South Africa (Vimal et al., 2006).
Commercial activated carbon also requires complexing agents to improve its removal
performance for heavy metals. Therefore this situation no longer makes it attractive
to be widely used in small-scale industries because of cost inefficiency (Sandhya and
Kurniawan, 2003). This has led to a search for cheaper carbonaceous substitutes. In
order to overcome the problems associated with the activated carbon, low cost
adsorbents derived from agricultural waste and industrial solids are proposed in the
present work.