Effect of Activating Agent on the Preparation of Bamboo-Based High Surface Area Activated Carbon by Microwave Heating

The present work attempts to convert bamboo into a high surface area activated carbon via microwave heating. Different chemical activating agents such as KOH, NaOH, K₂CO₃ and Na₂CO₃ were utilized to identify a most suitable activating agent. Among the activating agents tested KOH was found to generate carbon with the highest porosity and surface area. The effect of KOH/C ratio on the porous nature of the activated carbon has been assessed. An optimal KOH/C ratio of 4 was identified, beyond which the surface area as well as the pore volume were found to decrease. At the optimized KOH/C ratio the surface area and the pore volume were estimated to be 3,441 m²/g and 2.093 ml/g, respectively, with the significant proportion of which being microporous (62.3%). Activated carbon prepared under the optimum conditions was further characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). Activated carbons with so high surface area and pore volume are very rarely reported, which could be owed to the nature of the precursor and the optimal conditions of mixture ratio adopted in the present work.