Surface Area Determination of Activated Carbons Produced from Waste Tires Using Adsorption from Solution

The following study demonstrates the possibility of producing different activated carbons from a mixture of waste tires and tubes. The mixture was pyrolyzed at different temperatures namely (400,450 and 500 о C) for two hours for the determination of best condition of heating. It was found through the study that semi carbonized marital produced via pyrolyis at 500 о C was the best; thus it was used as a precursor for producing different activated carbon samples. The aforementioned precursor was converted into activated carbons via different method of activation i.e. thermally activation and steam activation at 800 о C for two hours as well as microwave heating at 450 watt for four minutes. Adsorption from solution technique was used to determine the surface areas of the produced chars using I2 and methylene blue as solutes. The produced carbons showed the presence of microporosity with development in mesoporosity. This was detected from the higher surface area by I2 adsorption and lower surface area using methylene blue. Langmuir and Freundlich models of adsorption were used to analyze the adsorption date of the produced carbon adsorbents. The results showed that Langmuir model was more suitable than Freundlich to analyze the adsorption data. Thus, it was used to determine the monolayer coverage of solutes through this study. Also, adsorption isotherms followed Langmuir type of adsorption according to Giles classification which indicates the microporosity of the prepared activated carbon.