Author(s)

Phil Lewis Mpampoungou Langama¹, Jean Jacques Anguile^1*, Crislain Bissielou¹, Adam Bouraïma¹, Albert Novy Messi Me Ndong¹, Daouda Kouotou², Joseph Ketcha Mbadcam²

¹Laboratoire de Chimie des Matériaux Inorganiques, Département de Chimie, Faculté des Sciences, Université des Sciences et Techniques de Masuku, Franceville, Gabon.
²Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Yaoundé 1, Yaoundé, Cameroon.

The present work deals with the preparation and characterization of activated carbons from the bark of the asparagus palm (Laccosperma robustum) by chemical activation with phosphoric acid and potassium hydroxide. The process was optimized on the basis of the analysis of the iodine number, methylene blue number and activated carbons yield as a function of the preparation parameters (concentration of the activating agents and the pyrolysis temperature). It emerges that the pyrolysis temperature and the concentration of activating agents influence the activated carbons preparation process. Their values were 500°C and 20% respectively for activated carbon with H₃PO₄ (ACP) and 700°C and 1.5% for activated carbon with KOH (ACK). The iodine numbers obtained were 850.26 mg/g for ACP and 865.49 mg/g for ACK. The methylene blue numbers obtained were 149.35 mg/g for ACP and 149.25 mg/g for ACK. The activated carbons yields obtained were 25% for ACP and 5.9% for ACK. The activated carbons prepared under optimal conditions have shown the pH of zero-point charge (pHzpc) of 4.4 and 7.0 for ACP for ACK respectively. The determination of the surface functions revealed that ACP had a strong acidic character while ACK had neutral character. The Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy also showed the presence of different functional groups on the surface of the precursor and activated carbons.

Activated Carbons, Asparagus Palm Bark, Chemical Activation, Phosphoric Acid, Potassium Hydroxide

Langama, P. , Anguile, J. , Bissielou, C. , Bouraïma, A. , Ndong, A. , Kouotou, D. and Mbadcam, J. (2023) Preparation and Characterization of Activated Carbons from Asparagus Palm (Laccosperma robustum) Bark by Chemical Activation with H₃PO₄ and KOH. American Journal of Analytical Chemistry, 14, 55-71. doi: 10.4236/ajac.2023.142004.