Development of activated carbon from waste tires for water treatment

Abstract

Activated carbon has been there with us for centuries. It has wide applications in various industries. in the water-treatment, dye, sugar refining, among others. Therefore, production of activated carbons locally and from locally available materials would be one of the most lucrative and environment-friendly solutions to this as it would transform negative–valued wastes to valuable materials. Thus, the main objective of this research was to prepare activated carbons from waste tires for it to be applied in water treatment using the physiochemical method of preparation. The carbonization process was carried out for 2hrs for three different samples at different temperatures of 4000C, 5000C and 5500C, and chemical activation carried out using Concentrated Phosphoric Acid as the activating agent in the ratio of 3:1. The resulting sample was then divided in three and then activated at different temperatures of 3000C, 4000C and 5000C with the same soaking time of 60minutes. The activated carbon was prepared under limited supply of oxygen from waste tires as the precursor. Waste tires are in plenty around the country due to the increased number of vehicles on the road which require tire changes after specific periods. Three different pyrolysis temperatures were considered with each investigated. Then also three different activation temperatures were used. The effect of the different activation conditions was investigated by comparing adsorbance of Methylene blue in each of the three samples. The optimum temperature for pyrolysis was obtained by optimizing carbon yield and costs, while optimum activation temperature was obtained by taking one which produces carbon with the highest Iodine number. The most suitable conditions for the preparation of activated carbons were found to be pyrolysis temperature of 500°C for 2hrs, and activation temperature of 5000C for 60mins. The highest Iodine number obtained was 822mg/g. However, recommendations are made to further more experiments and improve the surface area of this Activated Carbon to a required standard iodine number range from 900- 1050(mg/g).