Activated carbon prepared from shea butter husk by box-behnken response surface methodology

Abstract

Activated carbon was prepared from shea butter husk with Potassium chloride (KCl) used as activating reagent. Box Behnken design (BBD) tool, a subset of the Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was use to optimize the preparation parameters. The optimized variables used for activation of char obtained from shea butter husk after carbonization, were activation time, activation temperature and concentration of Potassium chloride (KCl) used. While iodine value was used as responses. The optimum iodine value of 1244.17mg/g was obtained at the best activating conditions of 600, 90 min and 2.0M concentration. A desirability of 0.9 was obtained. The predicted results are in close range with the experimental results. The raw and prepared activated carbon were analyzed with the use FTIR and SEM. This study is important for cost effective large scale activated carbon preparation for heavy metals treatment with the smallest amount of chemical usage and energy contribution