Artichoke as a non-conventional precursor for activated carbon: Role of the activation process

Artichoke peels were used to produce activated carbon using chemical activation methods. Two activation protocols were compared: a two-step method A and a one-step method B. As newly used activating agents, KCl, CrCl3 and TiCl4 were compared. The results show that method B is superior to A. KOH with method B had an area of 2321 m2/g and a total pore volume 1.0071 cm3/g, of which 0.9794 cm3/g was confined to micropores. The corresponding values for KCl are 1731, 0.6925 and 0.6718. TiCl4 had lower but comparable values with those of KCl. CrCl3 appeared to be the least successful among the three newly used activating agents. The post-activation washing step strongly affects the characteristics of the final product. The differences among the effects of Zn, Cr and Ti are discussed in terms of the differences in polarizing power.