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PREPARATION OF ACTIVATED BIO-CARBON FROM SAWDUST, RICE HUSK

AND COCONUT HUSK

VISHVARAJ CHAUHAN (130420105058)SAGAR DONGA (130420105011)

DENISH PATEL (13042015046)DIVYESH PANSURIYA (130420105042)

GUIDE: PROF. VAISHALI UMRIGAR

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CONTENTS• Aim• Objective• Introduction• Why Activated Carbon From These Sources?• Literature Survey• Proposed Process Details• Process Block Diagram• Process Specification Comparison• Tests• PMMS Activities• References

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AIM

“To prepare activated bio-carbons from sawdust, rice husks and coconut husks and test them for their physical and chemical properties. Also determine the best raw material among the three for production of high quality activated carbon.”

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OBJECTIVE• In this project, we strive to create porous and high quality

activated carbon from waste sawdust, rice husks and coconut husks from rice mills, coconut farms sawmills. The main objective is to create an industrially viable product while also reducing the amount of waste that is directly treated and disposed at waste treatment facilities and is burned at power plants.

• Our most important objective in this project is to find out which of these raw materials, as in sawdust, rice husk and coconut husk is the most favourable for production of highly adsorptive activated carbon.

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INTRODUCTION• Normally, coconut husk, rice husk and sawdust are treated

as wastes and disposed at power plant sites which cause serious environmental problems.

• Due to high carbon content in them, it could be feasible to prepare quantifiable and quality activated carbons from them.

• Rice producing countries like India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand etc have a huge potential for the reduction of waste from rice fields and preparing activated carbon.

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INTRODUCTION• With porous structure, high surface area and low cost,

Activated Carbon has been widely used as catalyst carrriers (catalytic support), adsorbent to adsorb metal ions and organic molecules or as electrode materials for batteries and capacitors.

• Activated carbon is one of the most important microporous adsorbents due to its tremendous adsorptive capacity, an affinity for variety of dissolved organics and ability to be custom-tailored to suit specific application

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According to IUPAC notation, micro porous materials have pore diameters of less than 2 nm and macro porous materials have pore diameters of greater than 50 nm; the meso-porous category thus lies in the middle.

Source: http://beggcousland.co.uk/products/gas-cleaning/active-carbon-systems/

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WHY AC FROM THESE SOURCES?• It is particular interest to select the sawdust as the raw material

to make activated carbon instead of other abundant sources such as clay minerals, nut shells, etc.

• In many countries, residues from oil palm and wood based industries are the main biomass source. Currently, large volume of these residues in the form of sawdust, off cut and wood barks were produced by wood based industries.

• Due to the shortage of wood supply, some of the waste minimization programs were implemented in these industries in order to maximize the use of the wood residue. Thus, one of the cost effective way is to convert the wood residue to activated carbon.

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• So far, rice husk has been successfully used as fuel in many industrial factories and used as biomass fuel in electricity generating because of its low humidity and simple operation.

• Not only rice husk, their charcoal that obtained from combustion step is also versatile. Both rice husk and rice husk charcoal have major components namely, carbon and silica. They have been found to be suitable materials owing to their high carbon and silica and low ash contents.

• Thus, a possible solving of rice husk is converting it into value-added activated carbon used as adsorbents. In other words, the expensive commercial activated carbon will be reduced.

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LITERATURE SURVEY• Literature was surveyed to analyse the different methods,

their characteristics, usage of different chemicals and apparatus.

• A brief summary is presented as follows:

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PROPOSED PROCESS DETAILS• Methods used for activated carbon production often consist of two

main steps: 1. Carbonization and 2. Activation.

• Carbonization involves the process of oxidizing the non-carbonaceous material leaving back the large amounts of carbon in the process. It is often achieved by pyrolysis or combustion in the absence of air.

• Activation is carried out to open up complex pore structure, create large specific surface area, initiate good chemical stability, and activate various oxygen-containing functional groups on the surface. Activating agents generally act as dehydrating materials and they may promote the formation of crosslinks. Activation is carried out mostly in three ways. They are; 1. Physical activation (Heat Treatment) 2. Steam activation and 3. Chemical activation.

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• Physical activation involves the usage of physical tools such as pressure and temperature to open up the macro, micro and mesopores. In steam activation hot steam is passed on a bed of the material to do the activation process, while in chemical activation the charge is impregnated into a chemical that acts as a ‘activating agent’.

• Chemical activation provides the highest quality micro porous and most efficient activated carbons.

• Pyrolysis in either a fuel based reactor or a microwave heater requires external inert conditions to avoid the charge reacting and oxidizing.

• Heat treatment is therefore to be done in a muffle furnace. Therefore, there is usually no combustion involved in the temperature control of the system, which allows for much greater control of temperature uniformity and assures isolation of the material being heated from the byproducts of fuel combustion and ambient conditions.

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• Activating chemicals that can be used: H3PO4, NaOH, KOH, LiOH, Li2CO3, Na2CO3, K2CO3, KHCO3, NaHCO3, CsOH, Cs2CO3, RbZCO3, RbOH, Fe(NO3)3, Ni(NO3)2, CO(NO3)2 and mixtures of the same.

• Phosphoric acid is preferred because it is a non-oxidizing acid, which acts as an acid catalyst for the production of a porous, crosslinked carbon structure. Also, H3PO4 seems to retain or fix more of the carbon in the structure than the thermal activation method.

• “Burn-off” is defined as the weight loss of carbon source, as determined on a dry weight basis, that occurs during the activation process.

• Impregnation Ratio is defined as the weight by weight ratio of activating chemical to the substance to be activated.

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PROCESS BLOCK DIAGRAM

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PROCESS SPECIFICATION COMPARISON

The basic materials required are raw materials as in sawdust, rice husks and coconut shells, chemicals for activation that is NaOH and H3PO4. The tools required include mesh screens, muffle furnace, desiccators and glassware.

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TESTS• 1. PARTICLE SIZE OF GRANULAR CARBON (PHYSICAL):

APPARATUS REQUIRED: Standard Sieves, Sieving Machine, balance.

PROCEDURE: Attach the sieve trays into the sieving machine. Run the activated carbon sample. Weigh the sieving fractions.

• 2. METHYLENE BLUE ADSORPTION TEST (ADSORPTION):

APPARATUS REQUIRED: Glass stoppered flask, filter paper, funnel, methylene blue test solution

PROCEDURE: Contact exactly 1 gm of the carbon sample with 25 mL of methylene blue test solution in a glass stoppered flask. Shake until decolourization occours. Then add further 5mL of methlyene blue test solution and shake to decolourization. Repeat the addition of methlyene blue test solution in 5mL portion as long as decolourization occours within 5 minutes. Note the entire volume of test solution decolourized by sample. Tabulate data and plot the respective isotherms, Freundlich and Langmuir.

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• 3. VOLATILE MATTER (PHYSICO-CHEMICAL):

APPARATUS REQUIRED: Muffle furnace, balance, crucible, lid and stand.

PROCEDURE: Weigh the empty crucibles. Adjust the temperature in the reaction zone of muffle furnace, containing empty crucibles to 900 ± 10 °C. Maintain the steady temperature conditions in the furnace. Weigh 1 gm of sample into each crucible, press the lids on the crucibles, transfer to the muffle furnace and leave for exactly 7 minutes at 900 °C . Remove, allow to cool and weigh the crucibles.

• 4. pH VALUE (PHYSICO-CHEMICAL):

APPARATUS REQUIRED: Distilled water, pH meter, electric heater, thermometer, watch glass.

PROCEDURE: Weigh out 4 g of carbon into a 250 ml beaker. Add 100 ml of Distilled. CO2 free (boiled out)water. Cover with watch glass and boil on the hot-plate for 5 minutes. Insert the thermometer and set aside for a few moments to allow the bulk of the activated carbon particles to settle. Pour off the supernatant liquid as soon as possible and before it cools to 600C. cool the decanted portion to room temperature and measure the pH to one decimal place.

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PMMS ACTIVITIES

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REFERENCES1. Huiping Zhang, Yiang Lin, Lichun Yang, Preparation of activated carbon from

sawdust by zinc chloride activation, 161-166, 12 May 2010..2. Arunrat Cheenmatchaya and Sukjit Kungwankunakorn, Preparation of Activated

Carbon Derived from Rice Husk by Simple Carbonization and Chemical Activation for Using as Gasoline Adsorbent, International Journal of Environmental Science and Development, Vol. 5, No. 2, April 2014.

3. Ami Cobb, Mikell Warms, Dr. Erwin P. Maurer, Dr. Steven Chiesa, Low-Tech Coconut Shell Activated Charcoal Production, International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2012.

4. Hariprasad, Rajeshwari Sivaraj, Aniz Cu, Preparation and characterization of activated carbon from rice husk, International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET), Vol. 03, Issue: 04 ,Apr-2016.

5. Y. Örküna, N. Karatepea, and R. Yavuzb, Influence of Temperature and ∗Impregnation Ratio of H3PO4 on the Production of Activated Carbon from Hazelnut Shell, International Congress on Advances in Applied Physics and Materials Science,Vol.121, Antalya 2011.

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REFERENCES (CONTD.)6. Materials and methods for production of activated carbons –

Zhengrong Gu, US20140162873A1, June 12, 2014. 7. Douglas K. Stephens, Highly activated carbon from caustic digestion

of rice hull ash and method, US6114280, September 5, 2000.8. Paul Y. H. Fung, Process for carbonizing wood residues and

producing activated carbon, US6808390B1, October 26, 2004.9. Electric Muffle Furnace, C.A. Crowley, Popular Mechanics, 67:6, pp.

941-945, June 1937.10. http://beggcousland.co.uk/products/gas-cleaning/active-carbon-

systems/ - Accessed on 18/10/2016.11. Test Methods for Activated Carbon – European Council of Chemical

Manufacturer’s Association, April ’86.

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THANK YOU.