Activated carbon from tomato stem by chemical activation with FeCl2

The present research investigates the feasibility of FeCl2 as a novel activating agent to prepare activated carbons from tomato stem (TS). The thermogravimetric analyses (TGA) of the untreated TS and the FeCl2-impregnated samples were measured, suggesting that FeCl2 can promote the dehydration reaction. The effects of two very important influential factors for chemical activation, activation temperature and impregnation ratio on the porous structure characteristics of the activated carbons, were discussed by using N-2 adsorption/desorption isotherms at 77 K. The optimized activated carbon (TSAC-FeCl2) with the highest BET surface area and micro-pore volume was produced at the activation temperature of 700 degrees C, the impregnation ratio of 2.5 and activation time of 1 h. SEM, TEM and FTIR were employed to examine the physicochemical properties of the TSAC-FeCl2. Adsorption behavior of TSAC-FeCl2 was estimated by utilizing Congo red (CR) as the adsorbate. The high adsorption capacity to CR attests that TSAC-FeCl2 can be regard as a valuable adsorbent to treatment dye pollutants.