Accepted Manuscript

Microwave pyrolysis with KOH/NaOH mixture activation: A new approach to

produce micro-mesoporous activated carbon for textile dye adsorption

Rock Keey Liew, Elfina Azwar, Peter Nai Yuh Yek, Xin Yi Lim, Chin Kui
Cheng, Jo-Han Ng, Ahmad Jusoh, Wei Haur Lam, Mohd Danial Ibrahim, Nyuk
Ling Ma, Su Shiung Lam

PII: S0960-8524(18)30830-7
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2018.06.051
Reference: BITE 20068

To appear in: Bioresource Technology

Received Date: 10 April 2018

Revised Date: 12 June 2018
Accepted Date: 16 June 2018

Please cite this article as: Liew, R.K., Azwar, E., Yek, P.N.Y., Lim, X.Y., Cheng, C.K., Ng, J-H., Jusoh, A., Lam,
W.H., Ibrahim, M.D., Ma, N.L., Lam, S.S., Microwave pyrolysis with KOH/NaOH mixture activation: A new
approach to produce micro-mesoporous activated carbon for textile dye adsorption, Bioresource Technology (2018),
doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2018.06.051

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 Microwave pyrolysis with KOH/NaOH mixture activation: A new approach to produce

micro-mesoporous activated carbon for textile dye adsorption

Rock Keey Liew a, Elfina Azwar a, Peter Nai Yuh Yek a,b, Xin Yi Lim a, Chin Kui Cheng c,

Jo-Han Ng d, Ahmad Jusoh e, Wei Haur Lam f, Mohd Danial Ibrahim g, Nyuk Ling Ma h, Su

Shiung Lam a,*

a.
Pyrolysis Technology Research Group, Eastern Corridor Renewable Energy Group, School

of Ocean Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Nerus, Terengganu,

Malaysia.
b
School of Engineering and Technology, University College of Technology Sarawak, Lot 88,

Persiaran Brooke, 96000 Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia.

c
Faculty of Chemical and Natural Resources Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang,

Lebuhraya Tun Razak, 26300 Gambang, Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia.

d
Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton Malaysia Campus,

Iskandar Puteri, Johor, Malaysia.

e
School of Ocean Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Nerus,

Terengganu, Malaysia.
f
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic Engineering Simulation and Safety, Tianjin University,

Peiyang Park Campus, 135 Yaguan Road, Haihe Education Park, Tianjin, 300350, People’s

Republic of China.
g

h
School of Fundamental Science, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Nerus,
Terengganu, Malaysia.

1
 lrklrk1991@gmail.com, elfina.azwar@gmail.com, peteryeknaiyuh@gmail.com,

xinyi.lim21@gmail.com, chinkui@ump.edu.my, j.ng@soton.ac.uk, ahmadj@umt.edu.my,

joshuawhlam@hotmail.com, imdanial@unimas.my, nyukling@umt.edu.my,

lam@umt.edu.my

*
Corresponding author. Tel: +609 6683844; fax: +609 6683991; Email address:

lam@umt.edu.my, sushiung@gmail.com (S.S. Lam)

Graphical abstract

Abstract

A micro-mesoporous activated carbon (AC) was produced via an innovative approach

combining microwave pyrolysis and chemical activation using NaOH/KOH mixture. The

pyrolysis was examined over different chemical impregnation ratio, microwave power,

microwave irradiation time and types of activating agents for the yield, chemical

composition, and porous characteristic of the AC obtained. The AC was then tested for its

feasibility as textile dye adsorbent. About 29 wt% yield of AC was obtained from the banana

peel with low ash and moisture (< 5 wt%), and showed a micro-mesoporous structure with

high BET surface area (< 1038 m2/g) and pore volume (< 0.80 cm3/g), indicating that it can

be utilized as adsorbent to remove dye. Up to 90% adsorption of malachite green dye was

achieved by the AC. Our results indicate that the microwave-activation approach represents a

promising attempt to produce good quality AC for dye adsorption.

2
Keywords: Pyrolysis; Microwave; Activated carbon; Activation; Hydroxide mixture

1. Introduction

The global exportation of banana had shown an increment from USD 9 billion to USD

11 billion in 2015 (Workman, 2016), which indicated an increasing world demand for

banana. Consequently, a significant amount of banana peel was generated by household and

food processing industries after consumption. Banana peel is commonly disposed via

landfilling that subsequently releases undesirable landfill gases (e.g. methane and carbon

dioxide) to the atmosphere through microbial decomposition. These gases can absorb heat

energy arising from the earth surface and in turn increase the earth temperature to promote

global warming. Therefore, efforts should be made to mitigate global warming by reducing

the source of these gases, which are derived from the large amount of waste disposed to the

landfill.

Waste recovery using pyrolysis techniques represents a promising solution to divert

banana peel from landfilling. Pyrolysis is a thermal decomposition process performed in an

inert environment that can produce mainly three types of pyrolysis products: solid char, liquid

oil, and incondensable gas (Lam et al., 2016a; Wan Mahari et al., 2017). In this study,

microwave pyrolysis was used to convert banana peel into useful products. The use of

microwave heating has the advantage of providing a faster and more efficient pyrolysis

process compared to that heated by electrical furnace or oven (Lam et al., 2017b; Wan

Mahari et al., 2016). When the biomass containing microwave absorber (e.g. carbon) was

exposed to microwave energy, heat was rapidly generated and uniformly distributed for

extensive pyrolysis decomposition to occur (Lam et al., 2017a; Lam et al., 2017c; Mushtaq et

al., 2015), hence a relatively short processing time was needed to obtain the desired product.

3
 The solid char produced from pyrolysis is of interest due to its multi-functionalities.

The char can be used as a soil amendment to enhance microbial interaction in soil (Visioli et

al., 2016), biofertilizer to culture mushroom (Nam et al., 2018), solid fuel (Liew et al.,

2018b), catalysis (Lam et al., 2015), adsorption of palm oil mill effluent (Lam et al., 2018), or

used as a precursor to produce activated carbon (Chen et al., 2016). Activated carbon is a

highly porous carbon material that is commonly applied as adsorbent in many adsorption

processes, such as removal of organic pollutants (Wang et al., 2017) and adsorption of carbon

dioxide from flue gas and air (Singh et al., 2017). The global market size for activated carbon

was recorded at USD 2 billion in 2012 and forecasted to reach USD 4 billion in 2019.

To produce activated carbon, the raw material (e.g. biomass) is thermally decomposed

through carbonisation – a charring process to convert biomass into char by pyrolysis. Then,

the char is ‘activated’ via physical or chemical activation to increase the char porosity (Liew

et al., 2018a; Yek et al., 2017). Physical activation uses carbon dioxide or steam as activating

agents while chemical activation is performed using chemicals (e.g. alkali metal hydroxides

and carbonates) to produce activated carbon. Chemical activation shows advantages over

physical activation in requiring lower activation temperature (450 – 700 oC) and producing

higher yield of activated carbon.

There were studies reported on the production of activated carbon using chemical

activation coupled with microwave pyrolysis (Nair & Vinu, 2016). Chemicals such as

potassium hydroxide (Sevilla et al., 2017) and zinc chloride were used as the activating agent,

however, there have yet to be studies reported in the literature on the application of a

chemical mixture to produce activated carbon except for the one previously reported by our

team on pyrolysis conversion from orange peel. Our previous study showed that the use of

chemical mixture seemed to have a beneficial effect in increasing the surface area and

porosity of the resulting activated carbon (Lam et al., 2017b).

4
 The above findings provide the motivation for this study, which was performed to

convert banana peel into activated carbon using microwave pyrolysis with emphasis on the

utilisation of hydroxides mixture as an activating agent. The effects of various process

parameters (i.e. microwave power, microwave irradiation time, chemical impregnation ratios

and types of chemical used for activation) on the yield and characteristic of activated carbon

obtained were investigated with the intention to explore the potential of using this pyrolysis

approach to produce activated carbon of improved quality.

The activated carbon was then evaluated for its feasibility as adsorbent to remove

malachite green dye for potential use in wastewater treatment. MG represents a synthetic dye

that is widely applied as coloring agent in textile industry for production of cotton and wool

products (e.g. clothes and scarf) (Yu et al., 2017). However, the wastewater released from the

textile industry contains residual MG dye that has been reported to be harmful to aquatic

organisms (Zhang et al., 2018). Thus, removal of MG dye from the wastewater should be

performed before the wastewater can be safely discharged to the environment.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1 Collection and drying of banana peel

Banana peel was collected from a local food stall in Kampung Tok Jembal, Kuala

Terengganu, Malaysia. The peels were rinsed with tap water to remove dirt particles and cut

into smaller pieces with diameter size of 2 cm to facilitate the analysis of thermal behaviour

by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), otherwise a large sample could decrease the efficiency

of heat transfer from the surface of sample to its core during TGA, resulting in incomplete

pyrolysis of the sample and hence producing inaccurate results from TGA. The peels were

then oven dried at 110 °C for 24 hours. The purpose of drying was to remove the moisture

5
content in order to prevent hydrolysis that would lead to rotting of the banana peel, thus the

dried banana peel can be stored longer for further use.

2.2 Microwave pyrolysis using hydroxides mixture to convert banana peel into activated

carbon

A two-step approach comprising carbonisation and chemical activation was

performed using microwave pyrolysis to produce activated carbon (AC) from banana peel. A

two-step approach comprising carbonization and chemical activation could produce AC with

a higher surface area compared to one-step approach (i.e. carbonization and activation are

simultaneously performed in one process). This is because the majority of volatile matter can

be removed from the banana peel during the first step (i.e. carbonization), and subsequently

led to the formation of pores on the remaining non-volatile components that in turn

transformed into biochar. Then, the use of chemical activation as the second step led to

formation of more pores and also widened the existing pores present on the surface of

biochar, thus producing AC with higher porosity, surface area, and pore volume.

A microwave oven with a frequency of 2.45 GHz (Samsung) was used to perform the

pyrolysis experiment. A custom-made 1 L quartz reactor was used as the pyrolysis reactor. N2

purge-gas was flowed through the reactor to maintain an inert atmosphere A type-K

thermocouple was used to monitor the pyrolysis temperature throughout the experiment. It

was found that the temperature ranged from 800 – 900 oC for carbonization and 400 – 500 oC

for activation. Figure 1 illustrates the set-up of the microwave pyrolysis system used to

produce AC.

Banana peel possesses dielectric loss tangent (tan δ) of 0.375 (Seaman & Seals,

1991), thus indicating it can absorb microwave energy efficiently and convert into heat

energy to undergo carbonisation. Carbonisation was first performed via microwave pyrolysis

to convert banana peel into a char product. 15 g of banana peel was measured and added to
6
the pyrolysis reactor, which was then inserted into the microwave oven. The carbonisation of

banana peel was conducted for 20 minutes at 700 W of microwave power under a continuous

N2 flow of 0.25 L/min. A char yield of approximately 35 wt% was obtained and the char was

then subjected to chemical activation using hydroxides mixture for conversion into AC.

Chemical activation was conducted with chemical impregnation as the first step.

Chemical impregnation ratio is defined as the weight ratio of the hydroxides to the char in

gram basis. For example, 0.5 g of hydroxides was used to soak 1 g of char to produce a

chemical impregnation ratio of 0.5. In this study, 5 g of char was soaked in a solution of

hydroxides mixture over a range of chemical impregnation ratio (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5) for 24

hours. The hydroxides mixture was prepared by dissolving potassium and sodium hydroxides

in distilled water. The char was then filtered from the hydroxides solution and again

subjected to microwave pyrolysis for conversion into AC. The microwave pyrolysis at this

stage was performed over different microwave powers (300 W, 500 W, and 700 W) and

microwave irradiation times (5 min, 10 min, and 15 min) to investigate the effects of these

process parameters on the yield, chemical composition and porous characteristic of the AC

obtained. The resulting AC was immersed in 0.1 M of HCl and then washed with hot distiled

water to remove the chemical residues remained within the AC. The AC was oven-dried at

110 °C for 24 hours and stored in a sample vial for further analysis. The production of AC

was repeated by soaking the char separately with hydroxide solutions of potassium and

sodium, respectively. This was followed by activation via microwave heating at 700 W of

microwave power for 10 minutes to investigate the effects of using different activating

chemicals on the chemical composition and porous characteristics of AC obtained. Table 1

shows the different process parameters used in the AC production.

The yield of AC was calculated as follows.

7
 (1)

Wf is the weight of AC produced (g) and Wi is the weight of banana peel (g).

2.4 Characterisation of char and activated carbon

The char and activated carbon were characterised for their elemental and proximate

contents, porous characteristics and surface morphology. The proximate contents (moisture

and volatile matter) of samples were obtained using a Mettler Toledo thermogravimetric

analyzer (TGA). The TGA analysis was performed from ambient to 900 °C at a heating rate

of 10 oC/min using N2 at a flow rate of 25 ml/min (Lam et al., 2016b). The sample was

burned in a furnace at 950 °C for 10 minutes to obtain the ash content. The fixed carbon was

calculated by difference (i.e. Fixed carbon = 100 wt% – moisture – volatile matter – ash).

Elemental contents of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N), and sulfur (S) of sample

were quantified using a FlashEA 1112 CHNS Elemental Analyse, while the oxygen content

was calculated by difference (Oxygen =100 wt% – C – H – N – S).

The surface morphology of sample was examined using JEOL JSM-6360LA Scanning

Electron Microscope (SEM) at 10 kV of accelerating voltage. The samples were coated with

gold particles to allow electrical conduction during the SEM analysis.

The porous characteristics of the sample were obtained using ASAP micromeritics

2020 porosimeter. The sample was degassed at 100 °C for 10 hours with 10 oC/min of ramp

rate under vacuum environment to remove residual moisture. N2 adsorption-desorption

experiment was then performed using liquid nitrogen at -196 °C to obtain the N2 adsorption-

desorption isotherm. The isotherm obtained was used to calculate BET surface area (SBET)

and estimate the total pore volume (Vt) at a relative pressure of 0.98. The average pore size of

the sample was estimated using Barrett-Joyner-Halenda (BJH) desorption method. The

8
micropore volume (Vmic) was determined by the t-plot method, whereas the mesopore volume

(Vmeso) was calculated by difference (Mesopore volume (cm3/g) = Total pore volume –

micropore volume).

2.5 Application of AC as adsorbent for removal of malachite green dye

The AC was also tested for its performance to adsorb malachite green (MG). The

adsorption test was performed at 25 oC and pH of 6.8 in a beaker containing 0.05–0.25 g of

AC and 100 ml of MG aqueous solution with an initial concentration of 10 mg/L. The use of

a low concentration of MG solution (10 mg/L) to perform the adsorption experiment was

deemed sufficient to evaluate the adsorption performance of the AC produced as has been

performed and reported by Jalil et al. (2012). The beaker added with AC and MG solution

was agitated at room temperature at a mixer speed of 150 rpm for 10 mins to ensure the AC

was mixed thoroughly with the MG solution (Santhi et al., 2016). 10 mins of contact time

was selected according to the actual practice in wastewater treatment by the relevant industry

(e.g. < 10 mins of contact time). However, it should be mentioned that the contact time

between AC and adsorbates could vary in different wastewater treatment plants depending on

the plant design, amount of AC used, and flow rate of wastewater towards AC.

The MG solution was then filtered by filter paper (Whatman No. 1, diamater 25 mm) in

order to separate AC from the MG solution and the residual concentration of MG was

analysed using a UV–Vis spectrophotometer at the wavelength of 617 nm (Naseeruteen et al.,

2018). The adsorption efficiency of MG by the activated carbon was calculated using

equation (2) whereas the removal percentage of MG dye was calculated using equation (3).

(2)

9
where qe (mg/g) = adsorption efficiency of activated carbon; C0 (mg/L) = initial concentration

of MG solution; Ce (mg/L) = final concentration of MG solution; V = volume of MG solution

in liter; W = mass of activated carbon used in gram.

(3)

where R (%) = removal percentage of MG dye; C0 (mg/L) = initial concentration of MG

solution; Ce (mg/L) = final concentration of MG solution.

3. Results and Discussions

3.1 Interaction of microwave heating on banana peel to produce biochar and AC

The influence of microwave to the banana peel could be explained by the interaction

between microwave radiation and the microwave absorbent material (e.g. carbon-containing

material such as biomass) (Lam et al., 2017a). Microwave radiation offers selective heating

mechanism in which it targets mainly to microwave absorbent material. By comparison with

the conventional heating that usually heated by an electrical furnace, the heating mechanism

shown by conventional heating is non-selective where the heat energy targets everything

within the chamber of the furnace. Banana peel (biomass material) represents a microwave

absorbent material that can absorb microwave energy and convert into heat energy within the

material itself for pyrolysis reaction to occur.

When the banana peel was exposed to microwave radiation, the microwave would

induce the polarization effect on the chemical bonds (e.g. covalent bond) of the

lignocellulosic components (cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin) present within the banana

peel and as a result the lignocellulosic components would undergo molecular oscillation (e.g.

bending and stretching). This oscillation would occur at the rate of super high frequency (up

10
to million times per second). Then, substantial heat energy would be generated from the rapid

oscillation motions resulted from the strong frictional force between the oscillating

molecules. As a result, the heat energy generated would have led to the cracking of

lignocellulosic components into volatiles and the carbonization of the remaining non-volatile

component of the banana peel. The non-volatile component of the banana peel would then

turn into biochar after carbonization and the liberation of the volatiles would create pores on

the surface of the resulted biochar.

During the subsequent step of chemical activation performed on the biochar, the

interaction between microwave radiation and the chemical impregnated on the biochar (e.g.

sodium and potassium hydroxides) would further lead to the formation of new pores and

widen the existing pores, thus producing AC with high porosity, surface area and pore

volume. This could be due to the intercalation effect of the energized alkali metal atom in

creating more pores on the biochar after the alkali metal (e.g. K and Na) has been exposed to

microwave radiation; the activation mechanism is presented and discussed in Section 3.3.2.

The effects of microwave radiation on the production of AC were further discussed in the

following sections with respect to the yield, chemical compositions, and porous

characteristics of AC obtained.

3.2 Yield of AC.

Figure 2 shows the yield of AC obtained at different microwave powers, microwave

irradiation times, chemical impregnation ratios and types of activating chemicals. Up to 29

wt% yield of AC was obtained from the banana peel char via this microwave pyrolysis

approach. It was found that the yield of AC produced was inversely proportional to the

microwave power and irradiation time where lower yield was obtained at higher microwave

power and longer irradiation time. This could be explained by the release of more volatile

11
matter during the activation stage of char at a higher microwave power and longer irradiation

time (Liu et al., 2010). When higher microwave power was used or the pyrolysis process was

performed at a longer irradiation time, the carbon elements present in the char, being a good

microwave absorbent, would absorb more microwave energy. The higher amount of

microwave energy then induced dipole rotation of carbon molecules (present in the char) at

the rate of million times per second. This rapid rotation of carbon molecules within the char

in turn produced frictional force and released more heat energy within the char itself which in

turn improved the pyrolysis cracking of char and released more volatile matter (Lam et al.,

2017a). As a result, lower yield of AC was obtained due to the release of higher amount of

volatile matter from the char (which then transformed into AC). Figure 3 illustrates the

mechanism of pyrolysis cracking derived from the heat generated from the dipole rotation of

carbon molecules induced by microwave energy.

Lower yield of AC (19 wt%) was obtained from a higher chemical impregnation ratio

(1.5). This indicates that the use of a higher amount of alkali metal hydroxides solution to

impregnate the char facilitated the removal of more volatile components from the char during

the subsequent microwave pyrolysis treatment. When higher amount of the chemical was

used, more alkali hydroxides molecules were available to break the chemical bonds such as

the alkyl-aryl bonds present within the char matrix (Demirbas, 2004). This in turn enhanced

the removal of some carbon components in the form of volatiles (e.g. CH 4, CO2 or CO)

during the subsequent thermal activation using microwave pyrolysis. Hence, the higher

chemical impregnation ratio resulted in the lower conversion of char into AC.

The yield of AC was also found to be influenced by the types of activating chemical

used. It was reported that KOH-activation produced AC in powder form while NaOH-

activation generated AC in granular form (Xu et al., 2008). The AC produced via KOH-

activation in this study was also in powder form and it showed the lowest yield (22 wt%) as

12
compared to that obtained by other types of activating chemicals. This was probably caused

by the unintended loss of AC during the washing step after activation since some of the AC

obtained in powder form were washed out in this step. In contrast, the AC obtained via

NaOH-activation was in granular form and it showed the highest yield (25 wt%) whereas the

AC obtained from Na/KOH-activation recorded a yield of 24 wt%.

According to the basicity strength of alkali metal hydroxides, KOH is more alkaline

than NaOH when dissolved in water due to the lower ionisation energy of potassium (K)

atom compared to sodium (Na) atom. Lower ionization energy indicates a weaker strength of

the ionic bond between a metal atom (i.e. K) and hydroxyl ion (OH-), thus the bond can be

easily broken when dissolved in water to form an aqueous solution, thus resulting in the

release of more hydroxyl (OH-) ions in the aqueous solution of KOH. These hydroxyl ions

were likely to have attacked and weakened the chemical bonds present within the char matrix

(e.g. the covalent bond between the monomer units such as ether bond (–C–O–C–) of

lignocellulosic components) during the chemical impregnation step. As a result, the

impregnated char matrix was more likely to be converted into AC with simpler

lignocellulosic dimer/polymer units by releasing more volatile matter from the breaking of

the weak chemical bonds in the char matrix during the subsequent microwave pyrolysis

treatment.

3.3 Analysis and characterization of feedstock (banana peel) and pyrolysis product

(char, AC)

3.3.1 Elemental and proximate contents of banana peel, char, and AC

Table 2 shows the elemental and proximate contents of banana peel, char, and AC. The

elemental contents of all samples contained mainly carbon (48.0–89.0 wt%) and oxygen

(10.2–45.0 wt%) followed by small amounts of hydrogen (0.7–6.0 wt%) and nitrogen (0.1–

13
2.0 wt%). Sulfur was not detected probably because the sulfur content was too low to be

detected by the elemental analyser. Proximate analysis of all samples showed that volatile

matter (8.8–55.0 wt%) and fixed carbon (34.0–83.5 wt%) represented the major contents

followed by small amounts of moisture (1.2–10.0 wt%) and ash (2.9–5.5 wt%). The ash

content of the AC produced (2.9–5.0 wt%) was within the commercially acceptable value (<

5 wt%) and consistent with the range of ash content from banana peel and char (4.0-5.5 wt

%), suggesting that the ash derived from chemical activating agent residues was removed

during washing step. These properties are important since higher ash content (> 5 wt%) could

have catalytic effect that can lead to undesired reaction (e.g. catalytic cracking reactions

between metal oxides in the ash with the other compounds in the AC) occurred during the

high temperature regeneration process (700–900 oC) of the used activated carbon (Dizbay-

Onat et al., 2017). The porous structure of the AC could be destroyed by the undesired

reactions and this could lead to reduction of the adsorption sites available. The presence of

ash could also induce corrosion on the reactor heating surface which eventually reduce the

thermal efficiency (Kim et al., 2017).

Banana peel showed high contents of carbon (48 wt%) and fixed carbon (34 wt%),

indicating its feasibility to be recovered as a carbon-dense product such as char and activated

carbon. The carbon content of char was increased while the oxygen and hydrogen contents

were decreased after carbonisation of banana peel. It was reported that the banana peel

contained 67.5 wt% of cellulose, 23.7 wt% of hemicellulose and 8.8 wt% of lignin (Agama-

Acevedo et al., 2016). During carbonisation, these lignocellulosic components would

decompose via a few chemical reactions (e.g. dehydration, carbon rearrangement, and

breaking of alkyl-aryl linkages) to release water (H2O), methane (CH4), hydrogen (H2),

carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) molecules (Asmadi et al., 2011; Cao et al.,

14
2013; Wang et al., 2009), thus producing char with higher content of fixed carbon (non-

volatile) and lower content of oxygen and hydrogen (Foo & Hameed, 2012).

It was observed that the carbon and fixed carbon of the AC produced were increased

at a higher chemical impregnation ratio, microwave power and microwave irradiation time

(Table 2). In contrast, the oxygenated contents (oxygen and volatile matter) were decreased.

When a higher chemical impregnation ratio was used, the oxygen-containing chemical bonds

(e.g. C-O and -COOH) present within the char matrix were likely to be weakened by the

concentrated hydroxyl ions (-OH-) during the chemical impregnation stage. This in turn

facilitated the release of oxygenated compounds such as CO2, CO and carboxylic acid (-

COOH) during the subsequent microwave pyrolysis treatment. Although the release of CO2,

CO and carboxylic acid (COOH) may reduce some amounts of carbon element, the carbon

content within AC is still higher than oxygen content, considering that the amount of carbon

element released is lower than oxygen element. Interestingly, the hydrogen content was

increased from 1.6 wt% to 2.3 wt% when higher chemical impregnation ratio was used,

suggesting that hydrogenation (addition of hydrogen atoms) occurred during the microwave

pyrolysis treatment where the hydrogen was probably derived from the activating chemical

solution or the char itself. The hydrogen atoms present on the surface of AC could potentially

act as adsorption sites for polar substances, suggesting its potential to be used in the

separation process of polar and nonpolar molecules in both solution or gases mixtures

(Dizbay-Onat et al., 2017).

Microwave power was found to have a strong influence in producing a carbon-dense

AC. At higher microwave power (i.e. 700 W), the banana peel char, containing carbon

(which is a good microwave absorber material), was exposed to more microwave radiation

and thus absorbing more microwave energy. The absorbance of more microwave energy was

likely to have induced and increased the dipole rotation of the carbon atoms present within

15
the char matrix at a super high frequency (i.e. up to million times per second) (Figure 3). As a

result, more heat energy were generated that led to extensive decomposition of the char

matrix, particularly the oxygenated fractions, leading to the increased release of these

oxygenated fractions in the form of volatile matters.

The banana peel char was likely to comprise complex polymeric compounds with

unsaturated carbon–carbon double bonds (Neutelings, 2011), alkyl-aryl linkage (e.g. carbon–

carbon single bond), and carbon–oxygen bond (Collard & Blin, 2014). The use of higher

microwave power (700 W) had provided enough energy (approximately 420 kJ, i.e. 700 W x

600 s/1000) to break the chemical bond between carbon and oxygen that has the bond energy

of 360 kJ (Benson, 1965). This converted some of the oxygenated compounds originally

present in the char into smaller compounds in the form of volatiles, leading to the decrease of

the oxygen element in the resulted AC. The bond energy (BE) measures the amount of energy

needed to break the chemical bond. Moreover, 700 W of microwave power could also

produce enough energy to break the carbon–carbon single bond (BE = 350 kJ) and this

probably had promoted the rearrangement reaction of the carbon atoms to form a more

complex polycyclic structure (Collard & Blin, 2014). Combined with the presence of

compounds with carbon–carbon double bond (BE = 600 kJ) in the char that cannot be broken,

the carbon elements were concentrated and preserved in the final form of AC. This explains

the production of AC (BP 700) with higher contents of carbon (82 wt%) and fixed carbon (78

wt%) at higher microwave power as compared to that obtained at lower microwave power

(BP 300 and BP 500).

Lower content of volatile matters was observed at a longer microwave irradiation

time. The longer exposure to microwave energy was likely to have promoted several

reactions to the cellulose and hemicellulose of banana peel char, such as dehydration into

water, depolymerisation into anhydrosugars and fragmentation into carbonyl compounds

16
(Van de Velden et al., 2010). As a result, AC with lower volatile matters was produced after

the release of these compounds (i.e. water, anhydrosugars, carbonyl compounds) from the

banana peel char. Moreover, the hydrogen content was decreased from 1.8 wt% to 0.7 wt%

when the microwave irradiation time was increased from 5 to 15 mins. Longer microwave

irradiation time seemed to have promoted reactions to convert banana peel char into AC with

more unsaturated polycyclic carbon structure. The longer exposure to microwave radiation

(i.e. 15 mins) on the char matrix would have created enough heat energy to induce the

conversion of large compounds of banana peel char at high temperature (i.e. > 500 oC)

(Collard & Blin, 2014). The C-H bond present in the saturated carbon structure would be

broken and form a new C-C bond by releasing H2 gas which subsequently produce

unsaturated carbon structure that has more carbon atoms.

The use of different chemical activating agents showed effects to the chemical

compositions of the AC obtained. It was generally found that AC with high contents of

carbon (≥ 70 wt%) and fixed carbon (≥ 73 wt%) can be obtained from the use of NaOH,

KOH, and the hydroxides mixture as the activating agents. The AC obtained also showed a

high BET surface area (≥ 985 m2/g). In particular, the AC produced from the hydroxides

mixture (BPNaK) showed the lowest moisture content (4.0 wt%). AC with low moisture

content can provide more adsorption sites available for use as an adsorbent. Otherwise, the

moisture would have blocked the adsorption sites of the AC, thus decreasing its adsorption

efficiency. Our results indicate that the use of microwave pyrolysis with hydroxides mixture

showed potential to produce AC with desired properties comprising high carbon content, high

surface area, and low moisture content.

3.3.2 Porous characteristics of char and AC

17
 The porous characteristics of the banana peel char and the AC produced from the char

were summarised in Table 3. The porous characteristics of AC were improved as compared

to its precursor material (i.e. banana peel char) after chemical activation. The AC was

detected with a BET surface area ranging from 320 m2/g–1130 m2/g, total pore volume of

0.20 cm3/g–0.80 cm3/g and an average pore size (8 nm–34 nm) that is within the range of a

mesoporous material (i.e. 2–50 nm). In addition, most of the AC produced (except BPK)

contained mainly mesopores as indicated from their higher mesopore volumes (0.13 cm3/g–

0.52 cm3/g) compared to micropore volume. The results showed that the use of hydroxides

mixture as a chemical activating agent favoured the production of mesoporous AC.

It was observed that the porous characteristics of the AC obtained were significantly

affected by different process parameters. When the chemical impregnation ratio was

increased from 0.5 to 1.0, the BET surface area was increased. This indicates that the increase

of the concentration of activating chemical had facilitated the development of new pores or

widened the existing pores present on the surface of the AC, thus resulting in the increased

surface area. However, further increasing the chemical impregnation ratio to 1.5 had caused

the decrease in surface area. The concentration of the activating chemical at this ratio was

found to be too high and could over-react with the carbon structure and resulted in the

destruction of the pores; similar observation was reported by Foo and Hameed (2012). Thus,

a chemical impregnation ratio of 1.0 in this study represents the optimum ratio for chemical

activation to obtain the highest BET surface area.

The effects of microwave power and microwave irradiation time on the BET surface

area and total pore volume of AC obtained were different. For microwave power, both

surface area and pore volume were increased when a higher microwave power was applied

during the thermal activation. At higher microwave power (e.g. 700 W), increased intensity

of microwave energy was radiated to the impregnated char that in turn induced the generation

18
of heat energy within the char matrix. This heat energy was likely to have caused the

expansion of the small pores within the char via gasification reaction that was reported to

commonly occur during the pyrolysis process (Foo & Hameed, 2012), hence increasing the

total pore volume of the AC. In addition, the heat energy could be absorbed by the alkali

metal atoms (i.e. Na and K) from char matrix and became energised atoms (i.e. Na* and K*)

to form new pores on the surface of the AC via intercalation (Lam et al., 2017b). During the

intercalation process, the energised metal atoms could insert or migrate into the carbon

structure of the AC to form pores on the surface and thus increase the surface area and total

pore volume of the resulted AC.

The use of different microwave irradiation time was found to have effects on the

surface area and pore volume of the AC produced. Higher surface area (1035 m2/g) and pore

volume (0.68 cm3/g) were detected from the AC produced at microwave irradiation time of

10 mins. However, the surface area and pore volume were decreased when the microwave

irradiation time was increased further to 15 mins. The prolonging of microwave heating on

the char would have promoted further decomposition and cracking of char into volatiles,

leading to the destruction of the existing pores (Xin-Hui et al., 2011). This explains the

decrease in surface area and pore volume obtained at a longer microwave irradiation time

(beyond 10 mins). It was also found that a shorter process time (< 15mins) was required to

produce activated carbon using microwave pyrolysis as compared to that required by the

electrical furnace (> 1 hour) (Dural et al., 2011).

The effects from using a hydroxide mixture on the porous characteristics obtained

were compared with that obtained from using a single hydroxide on its own (i.e. NaOH and

KOH respectively). It has been reported that KOH-activation could produce microporous AC

while NaOH-activation favors the production of mesoporous AC (Sirimuangjinda et al.,

2013). It was hypothesised that AC with hybrid properties (i.e. containing both micropores

19
and mesopores) could be produced from the use of hydroxide mixture. The results obtained

concurred to this hypothesis where the BPNaK was detected with a considerable volume of

both micropores (0.28 cm3/g) and mesopores (0.45 cm3/g). In contrast, the BPK contained

mainly micropores (0.70 cm3/g) while BPNa was detected with mesopores in majority (0.52

cm3/g). Our results indicate that AC with desired porous characteristics could be produced by

formulating the chemical activating agent using two or more chemicals.

The production of AC with different porous characteristics could be attributed to

activation mechanism of AC using a hydroxide mixture of KOH/NaOH, which is associated

with the physical characteristics (e.g. electronegativity and specific heat capacity) of alkali

metal atoms (e.g. K and Na). A reaction mechanism associated with the physical

characteristics of the alkali metal could account for the production of microporous or

mesoporous AC. It has been reported that microporous AC was usually produced from KOH-

activation whereas NaOH-activation favored more to the production of mesoporous AC

(Sirimuangjinda et al., 2013). When hydroxide mixture was used as an activating agent, the
+
alkali metal hydroxide molecule (KOH and NaOH) would be dissociated into cations (K and

Na+) and hydroxyl anions (OH-) when dissolved in water. The K+ and Na+ cations would then

be solvated by the water molecules and formed solvated complexes. During the chemical
-
impregnation of banana peel char, the hydroxyl anion (OH ) was likely have loosely bound to

the carbon surface of the char by van de Waals forces to form a negatively charged carbon-

hydroxyl surface. Then, the potassium and sodium-solvated complexes with positive charges

could be attracted towards the negatively charged of the carbon-hydroxyl surface.

Subsequently, intercalation was likely to happen during microwave pyrolysis where the

solvated complex with positive charges then inserted or migrated into the carbon structure of

the AC to form micropores or mesopores on the surface of the resulted AC (i.e. BPNaK). The

results obtained in this study on porous characteristics (Table 3) concur with this activation

mechanism where the BPNaK was detected with a considerable volume of both micropores

20
(0.28 cm3/g) and mesopores (0.45 cm3/g) rather than consisting mainly (e.g. > 85%) of either

micropores or mesopores; this helps to explain the formation of both types of pores by the use

of hydroxide mixture.

The pore size of the resulted AC could be related to the molecular size of the solvated

complex which depends on the electronegativity of the cation. For example, sodium (0.93)

has a higher electronegativity than potassium (0.82). Thus, the molecular size of solvated

sodium complex is larger than the solvated potassium complex, allowing it to form larger

pores on the resulted AC. The formation of pores could be initiated when the solvated sodium

complex received heat energy derived from microwave radiation. The resulting energised

solvated sodium complex, containing higher heat energy than that contained in potassium

complex (due to the higher specific heat capacity of sodium (1228 J/kgK for sodium and 757

J/kgK for potassium)), could cause more vigorous motions (e.g. translational motion and

rotational motion) on the char surface. As a result, the energised sodium complex could

migrate more into the carbon structure of the char and create a larger pore than the potassium

complex, thus producing mesoporous or macroporous AC.

3.3.3 Surface morphology of AC

The surface morphology of AC obtained was shown in the E-supplementary data.

Irregular shapes and sizes of pores were observed on the surface of the AC produced under

different process parameters. The surface porosity of the AC was increased when the

chemical impregnation ratio was increased from 0.5 to 1.5. However, cracks were observed

on the surface of BP1.5 which corroborates with its lower BET surface area and total pore

volume (See Table 3) as compared to BP1.0, indicating that the concentration of the chemical

activating agent used was too high. Hence, a chemical impregnation ratio of 1.0 was found

suitable to produce AC with high surface area and pore volume in this study.

21
 With respect to the effects of microwave power, well-developed pores were observed

from the AC produced at 500 W and 700 W of microwave power (i.e. BP500 and BP700

respectively). Fewer pores were shown on the surface of BP300, thus indicated that 300 W of

microwave power was insufficient to induce enough heat energy for the solvated

sodium/potassium complex to be migrated into the carbon structure to form pores. This also

concurs with the low BET surface area (320 m2/g) and total pore volume (0.20 cm3/g)

detected. Thus, a minimum microwave power of 500 W was required to induce enough heat

energy for the activation process of the AC.

Microwave irradiation time also significantly affected the development of pores on the

surface of AC. At 5 mins of microwave irradiation time, pores with irregular shapes and sizes

were formed on the surface. When the microwave irradiation time was increased to 10 mins,

the existing pores were enlarged and new pores were formed on the surface. This was

probably because the longer exposure to microwave radiation has caused more heating to the

banana peel char, thus promoting the decomposition of the remaining volatile fraction present

within the char matrix. As a result, more volatile matter were released and this resulted in

more void space (pores) formed on the surface of AC. Nevertheless, the pores observed from

BP15 were deformed and ruptured, which suggested that 15 mins of microwave irradiation

time was too long and was likely to have provided an excessive heat energy for pores

destruction.

Different pore sizes were observed on the surface of AC produced by different

chemical activating agents. It was observed that the pores of BPNa showed larger pore size as

compared to BPK, whereas the AC produced from the use of hydroxide mixture (BPNaK)

contained both small pores (micropores) and larger pores (mesopores), and the micropores

were also observed to have formed within the mesopores. The production of BPNaK with

considerable volumes of both micropores (0.28 cm3/g) and mesopores (0.45 cm3/g)

22
demonstrated that the use of hydroxide mixture has the ability to produce an AC with

improved porous characteristics where both micropores and mesopores would be available to

act as adsorption sites for use as adsorbent. Combined with the low content of moisture (4

wt%) and ash (3.8 wt%), BPNaK shows potential to be used in wider applications,

considering that an AC with high moisture and ash content could have moisture and ash

blocking the adsorption sites and reduce the functionality of the AC. Thus, BPNaK was

selected and further tested for its performance as a dye adsorbent; the results are presented

and discussed in the following sections.

3.4 Application of activated carbon as dye adsorbent

Table 4 shows the results obtained when different amounts of BPNaK (0.05–0.20 g)

were tested for adsorption of malachite green (MG) - a synthetic dye commonly present in

wastewater released from textile industry. The adsorption efficiency of BPNaK on MG dye

was found to range from 10.6 to 22.5 mg/g with the removal percentage ranging from 45 to

90%.

It was observed that the adsorption efficiency and removal percentage of of MG dye

were increased with the increasing amount of BPNaK (0.05 g to 0.25 g). This could be due to

the availability of more adsorption sites for the MG dye to be adsorbed onto when higher

amount of BPNaK was used, thus resulting in higher adsorption efficiency and removal

percentage obtained. Similar trend was reported in other literature where higher adsorption

efficiency was achieved with the use of higher amount of adsorbent (Nekouei et al., 2016). In

addition, it was also suggested from the results that a minimum amount of adsorbent (i.e. 0.25

g) should be used in order to achieve high removal percentage of malachite green.

The activated carbon adsorbed with MG can be collected and stored in a container for

regeneration. It can be regenerated via thermal or chemical method. For thermal method, the

23
spent AC can be heated at 300 oC for 1 hour using microwave heating in order to desorb the

MG molecules from the AC surface. For chemical method, a mixture of 5% acetic acid and

methanol could be used in the desorption process of MG from AC (Altıntıg et al., 2018).

3.5 Comparison of process features and energy consumption

Table 5 shows the comparison of some process features and energy consumption of

microwave pyrolysis performed in this study to other pyrolysis methods that produced

activated carbon using conventional heating source. It was found that microwave pyrolysis

requires a relatively shorter process time to perform both carbonization and activation (i.e. 35

min) over the one reported using conventional pyrolysis (90 – 300 min). In addition, the

estimated energy consumption for microwave pyrolysis (1470 kJ) was found to be about

three times lower than that required for conventional pyrolysis (4320 – 77400 kJ). This

indicates that microwave pyrolysis represents a potentially time-saving approach that requires

lower energy consumption due to the need of a shorter process time, thus lower production

cost is needed for microwave pyrolysis compared to conventional pyrolysis.

Table 6 shows the estimated production cost of AC by the microwave pyrolysis coupled

with hydroxide mixture approach to allow a simple evaluation of its economic feasibility. The

estimation was based on the cost incurred by the feedstock, transportation, chemicals

(hydroxides mixture and hydrochloric acid), N2 gas, and the electricity used by the pyrolysis

method in producing the AC. The production cost was estimated to be about USD 0.90 / kg

of AC, which is significantly lower than the market price of AC (up to USD 5.63 / kg of AC)

and also the production cost (USD 1.67 / kg of AC) reported by Selvaraju and Bakar (2017).

This can be a good indication that the microwave pyrolysis coupled with hydroxide mixture

approach contributes to the economic feasibility of this approach and shows potential to be

scaled-up for commercialization.

24
4. Conclusion

Activated carbon with high BET surface area, total pore volume, carbon and fixed

carbon contents, i.e BPNaK, was produced using hydroxide mixture as a chemical activating

agent over a chemical impregnation ratio of 1.0, 700 W of microwave power, and 10 mins of

microwave irradiation time. The BPNaK showed a micro-mesoporous surface (i.e. small

pores presence on large pores) with a high removal percentage (up to 90%) on malachite

green dye. Our results demonstrated that the use of microwave pyrolysis combining with

chemical activation using KOH/NaOH mixtures as chemical activating agent shows

exceptional promise to produce AC as dye adsorbent.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support by the Universiti Malaysia Terengganu to

conduct the research.

E-Supplementary data

E-supplementary data of this work can be found in online version of the paper.

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28
Table 1 Process parameters in AC production .

AC Chemical Microwave Microwave Types of

Sample Impregnation Power (W) Irradiation Chemical used in
Name Ratioa Time Activation
(Minutes)
BP0.5 0.5 700 10 KOH + NaOH
BP1.0 1.0 700 10 KOH + NaOH
BP1.5 1.5 700 10 KOH + NaOH
BP300 1.0 300 10 KOH + NaOH
BP500 1.0 500 10 KOH + NaOH
BP700 1.0 700 10 KOH + NaOH
BP5 1.0 700 5 KOH + NaOH
BP10 1.0 700 10 KOH + NaOH
BP15 1.0 700 15 KOH + NaOH
BPNa 1.0 700 10 NaOH
BPK 1.0 700 10 KOH
BPNaK 1.0 700 10 KOH + NaOH
a
Chemical impregnation ratio = weight of chemicals (g) / weight of char (g)

29
Table 2 Elemental and proximate contents of banana peel, char and activated carbon (wt%)

Sample Elemental Contents (wt%) Proximate Contents (wt%)

a b
C H N O S Moisture c Volatile Fixed Ash e
Matter Carbon d
BP f 48.0 6.0 1.0 45.0 0 7.0 55.0 34.0 4.0
Char g 58.0 2.0 2.0 38.0 0 8.0 37.0 49.5 5.5
h
BP0.5 75.0 1.6 1.4 22.0 0 5.0 18.5 72.3 4.2
h
BP1.0 81.0 1.8 1.7 15.5 0 3.9 14.8 76.7 4.6
BP1.5 h 85.0 2.3 1.5 11.2 0 1.2 11.3 82.9 4.6
BP300 i 63.3 1.6 0.1 35.0 0 5.3 30.0 60.0 4.7
i
BP500 67.5 1.4 0.1 31.0 0 6.0 21.5 68.5 4.0
BP700 i 82.0 1.8 0.2 16.0 0 4.0 13.0 78.0 5.0
BP5 j 61.2 1.8 0.3 36.7 0 7.5 33.3 45.8 3.4
j
BP10 82.4 1.4 0.2 16.0 0 4.0 15.6 76.2 4.2
j
BP15 89.0 0.7 0.1 10.2 0 3.7 8.8 83.5 4.0
BPNa k 70.5 2.5 1.4 25.6 0 5.5 18.3 73.3 2.9
k
BPNaK 75.0 2.0 1.0 22.0 0 4.0 15.0 77.2 3.8
k
BPK 82.2 1.6 0.2 16.0 0 7.0 10.7 79.1 3.2
a
Determined by the mass difference (i.e. O = 100 – wt% of C – H – N – S).
b
Sulphur content is not detectable by the minimum detection limit of the CHNS analyzer
(<0.05 wt%), and thus it is assumed to be 0 wt% in the calculation.
c
Dry basis.
d
Calculated by the mass difference (i.e. Fixed carbon = 100 – wt% of moisture – volatile
matter – ash).
e
Obtained by combustion at 950 oC with 20 mins of holding time.
f
Banana peel.
g
Char obtained from pyrolysis of banana peel.
h
Activated carbon obtained at different chemical impregnation ratio (0.5, 1.0, 1.5).
i
Activated carbon obtained at different microwave power (300, 500, 700W).
j
Activated carbon obtained at different irradiation time (5, 10, 15 minutes).
k
Activated carbon obtained from various chemical activating agents (NaOH, KOH, NaOH +
KOH).

30
Table 3 Porous characteristic of banana peel char and activated carbon

Sample BET surface Total pore Micropore Mesopore Average

area volume volume volume pore size
(m2/g) a (cm3/g) b (cm3/g) c (cm3/g) d (nm) e
Char f 51 0.05 0.01 0.04 8
g
BP0.5 680 0.55 0.15 0.40 8
BP1.0 g 1028 0.71 0.25 0.46 22
g
BP1.5 920 0.63 0.12 0.51 29
h
BP300 320 0.20 0.07 0.13 9
BP500 h 700 0.45 0.10 0.35 12
h
BP700 1035 0.72 0.26 0.46 24
i
BP5 670 0.40 0.10 0.30 16
BP10 i 1035 0.68 0.25 0.43 24
BP15 i 805 0.55 0.14 0.41 34
j
BPNa 985 0.60 0.08 0.52 8
j
BPNaK 1038 0.73 0.28 0.45 25
BPK j 1130 0.80 0.70 0.10 3
a
Brunauer, Emmett and Teller method.
b
Determine at relative pressure p/po = 0.98.
c
Determine by the t-plot method.
d
Obtained by the difference. Mesopore volume = Total pore volume – micropore volume.
e
Barrett-Joyner-Halenda desorption method.
f
Char obtained from pyrolysis of banana peel.
g
Activated carbon obtained at different chemical impregnation ratio (0.5, 1.0, 1.5).
h
Activated carbon obtained at different microwave power (300, 500, 700W).
i
Activated carbon obtained at different irradiation time (5, 10, 15 minutes).
j
Activated carbon obtained from various chemical activating agents (NaOH, KOH, NaOH +
KOH).

31
Table 4 Adsorption performance of malachite green by BPNaK

Amount of BPNaK (g) Adsorption efficiency Removal percentage

(mg/g) (%)
0.05 10.6 45
0.10 11.8 58
0.15 14.5 71
0.20 19.0 80
0.25 22.5 90

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Table 5 Comparison of process features and energy consumption
Properties This study Other study
Total process time (min) – carbonization 35 min 90 min (Ahmed et al., 2017)
& activation 180 min (Pandiarajan et al., 2018)
300 min (Peng et al., 2018)
Heating source Microwave Conventional heating (i.e. muffle
heating furnace, tubular furnace)

Power (W) of heating source 700 W 800 – 4300 W a

Estimated energy consumption (kJ) b 1470 kJ 4320 – 77400 kJ

a
http://www.elitefurnaces.com/eng/products/furnaces/1200%20Single%20Zone%20Tube%20
Furnaces.php
b
Estimated energy consumption (kJ) = Power of heating source (W) x Total process time (s)

33
Table 6 Estimated production cost of AC

Components Estimated cost

(USD/kg)
Transportation of banana peel 0.245
Banana peel as feedstock 0.06
Chemicals (Hydroxides and hydrochloric acid) 0.04
i.e. Hydroxides = USD 0.02, hydrochloric acid = USD 0.02 (Selvaraju &
Bakar, 2017)
Nitrogen gas 0.525
i.e. USD 3/48L, 1 standard refill of nitrogen gas in Malaysia = 48 L

Total consumption = 8.75 L (Carbonisation + activation)

= 8.75 L x 0.06 USD/L
= 0.525 USD
Electrical consumption including carbonization and activation 0.01875
i.e. Carbonization (20 mins, 700W) = USD 0.01
Activation using optimized process conditions (15 mins, 700W) = USD
0.00875
*Charges rate of electricity in Malaysia (1 kWh) = USD 0.05
Total estimated production cost ~0.90

34
Figure 1 Schematic layout of microwave pyrolysis system.

35
Figure 2 Effects of process parameters on the yield of activated carbon. (BP300, 500, 700 =

AC produced under different microwave power (300–700 W); BP5, 10, 15 = AC produced

under different microwave irradiation time (5–15 mins); BP0.5, 1.0, 1.5 = AC obtained from

different chemical impregnation ratio (0.5–1.0); BPNa, BPK, BPNaK = AC produced from

NaOH, KOH, NaOH + KOH, respectively).

36
Figure 3 Pyrolysis cracking derived from the heat generated from the dipole rotation of

carbon molecules induced by microwave energy.

37
Highlights:

 Activated carbon (AC) was produced by microwave pyrolysis with hydroxide mixture.

 Four process parameters were examined for the yield and properties of AC produced.

 AC showed micro-mesoporous structure with high surface area and pore volume.

 AC showed 90% removal of malachite green dye present in textile wastewater.

 Activation with metal hydroxide mixture produces high-grade AC as dye adsorbent.

38