Nano tungsten carbide supported on carbon from palm kernel shell in remediation of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC-12)

Abstract

The widespread applications of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) in industry including refrigeration, foam blowing agent and cleaning agent cause severe damage to the ozone layer and might contributed to global warming. Various methods were developed to find CFC alternatives or its environment's destruction. Among them catalytic conversion of CFCs into valuable compounds like hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) is most promising. It was observed that tungsten carbide (WC) catalyst has high potential in this hydrodehalogenation (HDH) process in remediation of CFCs. To improve reactivity, it is encourage preparing WC catalyst with high surface area. This study however has succeeded in developing high surface area tungsten carbide catalyst for the catalytic HDH of dichlorodifluorocarbon (R-12) using prepared activated carbon from waste palm kernel shell. This prepared catalyst is an economical, alternative route for production of tungsten carbide with high selectivity product towards HFC-32 which has zero ozone depletion potential (ODP).