7th Regional Conference in Chemical Engineering

Yogyakarta, Indonesia, December 2-3, 2014

Preparation and Characterization of

Waste-Derived Activated Carbons
Hajime Tamon
Department of Chemical Engineering, Kyoto University, Japan

Solid Wastes
More and more solid wastes are produced
by society and industry, and landll sites
are becoming full and hard to nd.
If activated carbons (ACs) are produced
from solid wastes, the production can be a
two-fold solution to environmental
problems and effective reuses of wastes.

Problems on AC
Production
Activated
carbons are produced from raw
materials that contain rich carbon.
Industrial and house-hold wastes contain
relatively rich carbon, but the
composition is variable and
inhomogeneous.
Solid wastes have been considered to be
unfavorable raw materials for activated

Objective
Preparation of mesoporous activated
carbons from solid wastes
Good idea on pre-treatment for stea
m-activation
Activated carbons from six kinds of s
olid wastes

Outline of Talk
Preparation of mesoporous activated
carbons from solid wastes
Porous characteristics of activated
carbons prepared
Application to gas adsorption
Application to liquid adsorption

Outline of Talk
Preparation of mesoporous activated
carbons from solid wastes
Porous characteristics of activated
carbons prepared
Application to gas adsorption
Application to liquid adsorption

materials of activated
carbons

(A) RDF, (B) PET pellets, (C) Waste coffee beans,

(D) LFG, (E) Waste tires, (F) PET bottles

Refuse derived
fuel (RDF)
From municipal solid wastes discarded in
a city of Japan
Contained mainly papers, wood, garbage,
plastics, and a little metal compounds.
Briquetted cylindrical RDF (diameter:
ca. 2 cm, length: ca. 5 cm)
Contained calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2)

and waste coffee

beans

B) Pellets (diameter: ca 2 mm, length: ca 2 mm)

of PET (polyethylene telephthalate)
C) Waste coffee beans (diameter: ca 1 mm,
length: ca 1 mm) exhausted from a can coffee
industry

Waste tires

Waste tires were cut, crushed, ground,

and centrifuged while steel wires and
fabric cords contained were removed.

Particle size: smaller than 0.6 mm.

LFG
D

Waste

generated during the lactic acid

fermentation from garbage (LFG)
LFG was dried, crushed and used for a
raw material of activated carbons.

PET bottles

Waste

PET bottles were collected from

a supermarket, and cut into squares
(length: ca. 5 mm).

bon
Prepared by carbonization and s
team-activation of solid wastes.
Not developed pore structure.
Ash prevents uniform developm
ent of pores because of rapid cat
alytic gasification.

Carbonization in
inert atmosphere

Acid treatment of char is effecti

ve for steam-activation.

Steam-activation
Activated carbon

activation
Mixing metal salts
with solid wastes

Add following procedures

to conventional steamactivation.

Carbonization in
inert atmosphere
Acid treatment

Mixing cheap metal salts with ra

w materials.
Removal of metal salts by acid tr Washing and drying
eatment after carbonization
Steam-activation
Washing and drying
Activated carbon

Mixing of metal salts

Not necessary for RDF, waste tires and LFG because they
contain metal salts as ash.
Ca(NO3)24H2O, Ca(OH)2, etc. are mixed for waste PET pel
lets, waste coffee beans and PET bottles.

Outline of Talk
Preparation of mesoporous activated
carbons from solid wastes
Porous characteristics of activated
carbons prepared
Application to gas adsorption
Application to liquid adsorption

Porous properties of wastederived

activated
carbons
Raw
PreS [m /g]
V
V
AC-PET
AC-Tire
AC-RDF
ACCoffee
AC-LFG
AC-Com

materials treatment
PET
A
bottles
Waste tires
B
RDF
B
Coffee
C
beans
LFG
B

BET

mic
3

mes
3

1200

[cm /g]
0.40

[cm /g]
0.95

1000
520
1020

0.48
0.17
0.56

0.79
0.27
0.48

700
910

0.28
0.39

0.39
0.24

A: Mixed raw materials with Ca(NO3)2 4H2O and treated with

1.0N HCl prior to steam activation.
B: Treated with 1.0N HCl prior to steam activation.
C: Mixed raw materials with Ca(OH)2 and treated with 2.64N HNO3
prior to steam activation.

Porous properties of wastederived activated carbons

AC-PET
AC-Tire
AC-RDF
ACCoffee
AC-LFG
AC-Com

Raw
PreSBET [m2/g]
materials treatment
PET
A
1200
bottles
Waste tires
B
1000
RDF
B
520
Coffee
C
1020
beans
LFG
B
700
910

Vmic
[cm3/g]
0.40

Vmes
[cm3/g]
0.95

0.48
0.17
0.56

0.79
0.27
0.48

0.28
0.39

0.39
0.24

AC-Coffee, AC-Tire and AC-PET have lots of

micropores.
All carbons have more mesopores than AC-Com.
Pre-treatment effectively develops mesopores.

Pore size distributions of

waste-derived activated
carbons
dV/dln(Rp) [cm3/g]

2.0

AC-PET
AC-Tire
AC-RDF
AC-LFG
AC-Com

1.5

1.0

0.5

10

20

Rp [nm]

Mesopore development for AC-PET and AC-

Surface characteristics of
waste-derived activated
carbons
V [cm3(STP)/g]

400

AC-PET
AC-Tire
AC-RDF
AC-LFG
AC-Com

300

200

100

0.2

0.4
0.6
P/P0 [-]

0.8

Surface of AC-RDF and AC-LFG is not

hydrophobic compared with others.

Outline of Talk
General information on mesoporous
activated carbons
Preparation of mesoporous activated
carbons from solid wastes
Porous characteristics of activated
carbons prepared
Application to gas adsorption

carbons
from PET pellets
Carbonization Acid treatment

PET

Metal salts

Activated carbons
Steam-activation

Mixing of metal salts preparation of 6 kinds of chars

P1 no mixing, P2 mixing of Ca(NO3)24H2O, P3
mixing of Ca(OH)2, P4 mixing of CaCO3, P5 mixing of
ZnO, P6 mixing of AlNH4(SO4)212H2O
Acid treatment: 1.0N HCl

Pore volume of activated carbons prepared fr

om PET

Micropore volumes : 0.2~1.1 cm3/g, mesopore volumes : 0.04~0.90 cm3/g.

All groups of carbons have similar micropore volumes.
Mesopore development of carbons prepared via pre-treatment is much
larger than those without pre-treatment.

SEM images of char

surface

A: Char from PET

B: Char prepared by mixing of
Ca(NO3)24H2O, carbonization and acid
treatment
C: Char prepared by mixing of Ca(OH)2,
carbonization and acid treatment

Heterogeneity of surface is different from each other.

ment
Raw material metal salt
Carbonization

Raw material
Carbonization

Metal salt

Organized carbons
Disorganized carbons
Less disorganized carbons
Uniform orientation of organized
carbons
Many disorganized carbons
Disordered orientation of organized carbons

Acid treatment

CO 2 adsorption on activated carbons prepared from PET

P2

P1

25

25

ref AC-Com

Burnoff does not influence amount adsorbed so much.

Amount adsorbed on 2A series carbons are smaller
than other carbons.

C2H6 adsorption on activated

carbons prepared from PET
P2

P1

25

25

ref AC-Com

Amounts of C2H6 adsorbed on all carbons of P2

group increase with burnoff. Amount adsorbed on
2A series carbons of P1 group is clearly small.
Pre-treatment increases C2H6 adsorption.

nC4H10 adsorption on activated

carbons prepared from PET
P2

P1

25

25

ref AC-Com

Amount of nC4H10 adsorbed on all groups of carbons

increase with burnoff.
Amounts adsorbed on 1A and 2A series carbons of
P2 are much larger than commercial activated carbon.

iC4H10 adsorption on activated

carbons prepared from PET
P2

P1
25

25

Amounts of iC4H10 adsorbed on all groups of carbons

increase with burnoff.
Similar results to nC4H10 adsorption are obtained.

Outline of Talk
General information on mesoporous
activated carbons
Preparation of mesoporous activated
carbons from solid wastes
Porous characteristics of activated
carbons prepared
Application to gas adsorption

Molecular size of
adsorbates
Phenol

Black 5

Adsorption equilibria on
waste-derived activated
carbons
10

AC-PET
AC-Tire
AC-RDF

0.1
AC-PET
AC-Tire
AC-RDF
AC-LFG
AC-Com

25
0.01
10

100
Ce [mg/l]

Phenol

1000

Q [g/g-AC]

Q [g/g-AC]

1.0

0.1
AC-LFG
AC-Com
0.01
1

10

25

100
Ce [mg/l]

Black5

1000

Conclusions
Activated carbons were produced from six kinds of
solid wastes by steam-activation.
The proposed pre-treatment for steam-activation is
effective to improve mesoporosity of activated carbons.
Activated carbons prepared from RDF and LFG are
more hydrophilic than carbons from PET and waste
tires.
Activated carbons prepared by the pre-treatment have
large adsorption capacity of nC4H10 and iC4H10.
Activated carbons with many mesopores and
hydrophobic surface are useful to adsorption of large
molecules.

Thank you for your attention.

Solid wastes

Raw material
of RDF
Composition of municipal wastes (raw
material of RDF)
Waste
Wt%
(dry
basis)
Plastics
Combustibles
(papers, clothes, woods,
etc.)

12.3
54.6

Garbages

32.0

Composition of
RDF
Combustibles
(wt%)

83.7

Ultimate analysis of ash (wt%)

Ash (wt%)

16.3

Calcium

15.1

Aluminium

8.91

Ultimate analysis of
combustibles (wt%)

Iron

7.23

Carbon

Magnesium

2.45

51.6

Hydrogen

7.65

Potassium

2.19

Nitrogen

1.00

Sodium

2.13

Manganese

0.21

Oxygen

39.6

Sulfur

0.03

Zinc

0.06

Chloride

0.12

Copper

0.05

Nickel

0.03

Pore size distributions of activated carbons prepared from PE

T

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

P6