Production of sugarcane bagasse-based activated carbon for cd2+ removal using factorial design

Abstract

An evaluation of the effect of preparation conditions on the production of activated carbon from sugarcane bagasse for Cd2+ removal was carried out using a 2-level full factorial design. Sugarcane bagasse based activated carbon was prepared in a single step steam pyrolysis using a horizontal tube furnace. The investigated parameters were temperature (700 - 800oC), time (60 - 120 minutes) and steam flow rate (10 - 50 mL/min), within 11 experimental runs. Two responses were considered, the activated carbon yield and the removal % of Cd2+ from aqueous solution. The predicted results from the full factorial model were compared with the experimental values, with regression coefficients of R2 = 0.986 for yield and R2 = 0.989 for removal. Optimization was applied using desirability function with the selected optimum desirability of 0.592 for the set goals.