Preparation and characterization of chemically activated adsorbent from the combination of coconut shell and fly ash

Abstract

This study reports the combination of two low-cost biowaste high performing adsorbent materials coconut shell and fly ash as a new hybrid adsorbent by investigating the effects of various composition ratio and chemical activation. Several analyses were performed on the prepared adsorbents in order to evaluate their characteristics in regards to the varied composition ratio as well as the effect of the chemical activation. The water content and iodine adsorption analysis showed that all adsorbents have met the National Standard for the adsorbent quality, however ash content is still high when high amount of fly ash is present in the adsorbent. The SEM analysis revealed that after chemical activation there is a pore size enlargement in the adsorbent, and a slight reduce of pore size when higher ratio of fly ash is present. XRD analysis illustrated that addition of coal fly ash induced the adsorbent has more crystalline structure compared to when it was as coconut shell alone. In addition, The BET analysis confirmed that all four adsorbents are classified as macro-porous.