Preparation of Activated Carbon from Banana Peel Waste as Adsorbent for Motor Vehicle Exhaust Emissions

Air pollution caused by motor vehicle exhaust emissions in the form of harmful gases becomes a problem for the health of living things in the surrounding environment. The alternative way to reduce those emissions is by utilizing agricultural waste as activated carbon (AC). AC can adsorbs those emissions due to its porous and high surface area. AC was made of banana peel waste that contains of lignocellulose and has considerable amount because of banana processing industrialization. AC was made through dehydration, carbonization at 350°C furnace without or with N ₂ gases of 0.15 NL/minute for 1 hour, then chemical activation using various concentrations of H ₂ SO ₄ solution at 85°C for 1 hour. Characterization of activated carbon was done by iodine number test. The result shows that carbon chemical activation by 6 N of H ₂ SO ₄ gave better result of iodine number than the lower concentration, obtaining 428 mg/g and overall yield of 41.68%. The result was even better on physical-and-chemical activation with same concentration of H ₂ SO ₄ , obtaining 617 mg/g with surface area of 614 m ² /g and overall yield of 56.40%.