Testing the carbonization condition for high surface area preparation of activated carbon following type IV green alga Ulva lactuca

Abstract

Activated carbon with high specific surface area has been produced from green alga Ulva lactuca by using zinc chloride (ZnCl2) solution as an activating agent under carbonization temperature ranged from 500 to 900 °C. The effects of carbonization temperatures, holding time, and amount of ZnCl2 followed by soaking in hydrochloric acid on the specific surface area, pore morphology, and mass yield of the prepared activated carbon were investigated. In this work, the activated carbon with high specific surface area was achieved using 1:2 (ZiCl2: Ulva lactuca) impregnation agent, 700 °C as activation temperature, 30 min as holding time, and soaking with 3.0 M hydrochloric acid as the optimum conditions. This condition produced an activated carbon with specific surface area (SBET) and micropore surface area (Smi) of 1486.3 and 1582.04 m2/g, respectively, with mean pore diameter (DP) of 2.39 nm. The results showed that the chemical activation by ZnCl2 is a useful technique for obtaining activated carbon from Ulva lactuca with desired pore size distributions and morphology at moderate activation temperatures.