Activated carbon production from Moroccan olive wastes -: Influence of some factors

A new high quality activated carbon has been obtained from farm food industry wastes (olive wastes). The objective was to control the different factors which interfere in carbonization and activation, in order to determine the optimal conditions of the preparation Due to the existence of a number of factors, a two-level factorial design was used to investigate the most influential factors together with their mutual interactions. The study of the impact of temperature, times of stay and carbonization has shown that only temperature has a significant influence on the answers, and that the ratios H/C and O/C are low at 500 degrees C, 120 min. in the absence of vector gas (N-2), which implies an increase in the aromaticity of the carbonized material. At the level of activation, a series of experiments has been made on the basis of the following variables : temperature of carbonization, temperature of activation, time of stay, granulometry and preprocessing with sulphuric acid. The results have shown that the overall yield in charcoal is high and that the temperature of activation and time of stay at this temperature have strong effects on the preparation of this activated carbon. It has been observed that the new activated carbon has adsorbed methylene blue (40 to 403 mg g(-1)) and iodine (600 to 1131 mg g(-1)) more than some commercial activated carbons.