Elemental and physical effect of carbon from date's frond after activation by phosphoric acid

Abstract

Date frond, a low-cost agricultural by-product abundant in Saudi Arabia was used as a precursor for the production of porous carbons by chemical activation using phosphoric acid. The developed surface morphology was studied using thermogravimetry analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and single point BET surface area. The result obtained from TGA indicates major weight loss is during heating before 400 °C. In this study, thus this temperature was chosen to carbonize the date frond after the chemical activation using phosphoric acid (H3PO4) at various concentrations. FTIR results show that the sample is successfully converted from raw material to pure high surface area carbon. This study also shows that chemical activation at 60% H3PO4 gives the highest surface area of 1138.0 m2·g-1. Field emission scanning microscope/energy dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (FESEM/EDAX) on the other hand shows that chemical activation will wash away some minerals during activation to create the high surface area activated carbon.