Coconut Shell Ash - A Novel Adsorbent

Coconut shell activated carbon exhibits good adsorption characteristics and can be used as a low-cost adsorbent for COD removal from distillery spent wash.One of the main advantage of using coconut ash over the other chemical treatment methods is that it is in abundance and its easy availability makes it a strong choice in the investigation of economic way of COD removal.

How to prepare?

1. The shells derived from various waste sources were cleanly shaved to remove all the fibres on its surfaces.
2. Cleaned shells were cut into 3 mm to 8 mm pieces.
3. These pieces were washed with distilled water to remove dust and dried in sunlight for 2-3 days.
4. The cleaned and dried coconut shells were then broken into small pieces to allow insertion into a muffle furnace(KW=0.3,AMP=13,TYPE=MFRA,PHASE=SINGLE)and subjected to destructive distillation in the absence of air.
5. The temperature of the furnace was maintained up to 400 C for three hours to avoid reactions with atmospheric oxygen and thereby preventing formation of ash.
6. The resulting carbonized matter was washed with water and dried at 100 C.
7. The dried material was grounded and sieved to separate particles of 20-50 Mesh(ASTM)with the help of standard sieves.
   

Now the adsorbent is ready and those interested in doing their projects in WASTE WATER TREATMENT can use this as an alternative for other chemical adsorbents.