Applicability of Industrial Sisal Fiber Waste Derived Activated Carbon for the Adsorption of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)

Agricultural waste produced by the industry is a huge threat for the global environment. Utilization of agricultural waste is necessary and there is an urgent need to develop new techniques to solve this important problem. The main objective of this research was to evaluate the applicability of the activated carbon (AC) derived from industrial sisal fiber waste as passive samplers in monitoring toluene by comparing them to industry standard wafer and granular activated carbon (GAC). Carbonization time and ball milling effect on sisal fiber derived AC sample adsorption properties were investigated. Toluene adsorption isotherms were used to predict toluene adsorption capacities. Surface characteristics including surface area and pore volume were used to determine the relationships between them and adsorption capacity. Even though prepared AC samples have mesoporous structure, commercial samples have microporous structure. Surface area from 1245 m(2)/g to 1297 m(2)/g and toluene adsorption capacity from 21.4 % to 26.6 % was improved by increasing carbonization time from 1 h to 3 h at 650 A degrees C carbonization temperature and 94.4 ml/min flow rate. Conversely, ball milling technique had negative effect by decreasing the surface area (674 m(2)/g) and the adsorption capacity of toluene (12.27 %). It is concluded that industrial sisal fiber waste have great potential as a precursor of AC for application in passive monitoring against toluene, particularly the produced mesoporous AC with 3 h carbonization time performs higher adsorption capacity (26.6 %) than commercially available microporous passive sampler (24.1 %) and GAC (22.8 %).