Fabrication and Characterization of Activated Carbon Fibers from Oil Palm Trunk.

To develop more valuable application, oil palm trunk was successfully converted into activated carbon fibers (ACFs). An effective process of chemical treatment with dilute sulfuric acid was conducted to improve the thermal stability of primary fibers for further heating treatment. Carbon dioxide (CO2) was used as activator to produce much porous structure with various pore diameter. The specific surface area (SBET) and total pore volume (Vtotal) of resultant ACFs showed increasing trend as rise of activation temperature and time. The ACFs obtained under the temperature of 900 °C and time of 90 min exhibited highest SBET and Vtotal, which were more than 1800 m2/g and 0.7 mL/g, respectively. Meanwhile, more graphic carbon on the surface of ACFs were destroyed with prolonging activation time, resulting in the oxygen-containing functional groups formed during activation process with CO2. Due to the abundant pores and surface functional groups, the ACFs exhibited excellent adsorption capacity of chromium and would be an alternative material for industrial adsorption utilization.