Novel Activated Carbons from Agricultural Wastes and their Characterization

Solid waste disposal has become a major problem in India, Either it has to be disposed safely or used for the recovery of valuable materials as agricultural wastes like turmeric waste, ferronia shell waste, jatropha curcus seed shell waste, delonix shell waste and ipomea carnia stem. Therefore these wastes have been explored for the preparation of activated carbon employing various techniques. Activated carbons prepared from agricultural solid wastes by chemical activation processes shows excellent improvement in the surface characteristics. Their characterization studies such as bulk density, moisture content, ash content, fixed carbon content, matter soluble in water, matter soluble in acid, pH, decolourising power, phenol number, ion exchange capacity, ion content and surface area have been carried out to assess the suitability of these carbons as absorbents in the water and wastewater. For anionic dyes ( reactive, direct, acid) a close relationship between the surface area and surface chemical groups of the modified activated carbon and percentage of dye removal by adsorption can be observed. Cationic dyes large amount of surface chemical groups present in the sample ( mainly carboxylic, anhydrides, lactones and phenols etc.) are good anchoring sites for adsorption. The present study reveals the recovery of valuable adsorbents from readily and cheaply available agriculture wastes.