Utilization of date stones for production of activated carbon using phosphoric acid

Date stone wastes have been utilized for production of activated carbon by chemical activation with phosphoric acid using a fluidized-bed reactor. The effects of the activation time, activation temperature, impregnation ratio, and particle size on the yield and the adsorptive capacity towards iodine were studied. The yield and the quality of the activated carbon prepared by using H3PO4 were compared with that prepared from date stones using the same equipment, and under similar conditions by using ZnCl2 as an oxidizing agent. The maximum value of the iodine number of the activated carbon produced using H3PO4 in this work was about 495 under the following conditions: impregnation ratio 0.4, activation time 60 min, activation temperature 800 °C, particle size 0.60 mm. The iodine number for the produced activated carbon was higher when phosphoric acid was used, compared to that when zinc chloride was used as impregnation reagent; however, the yield obtained when H3PO4 was used was lower than the yield when ZnCl2 was used. The iodine number increases significantly with increasing the activation temperature. By increasing the impregnation ratio at the same temperature, the iodine number decreased sharply and an oscillation is noticed for all the cases but it was clearer at 800 °C. The average variation of the iodine number for the whole range of particle size used in this work is ±10%.