Hardness, density and moisture
Hardness, carbon density and moisture values are
presented in Table 2. The hardness of the non-activated
carbons was 90.0, 90.5 and 87.5% for bone, coconutshell
and wood respectively. The hardness of the carbons
increased during heat activation and decreased during
acid activation. The increase was significant for bone and
coconut-shell carbon .The hardness of heat activated
carbons decrease in the order: coconut shell < bone <
wood and the acid activated carbon in the order: bone <
coconut-shell < wood. The density of the non-activated
was 0.78 g/cm3
, 0.60 g/cm3
and 0.40 g/cm3
, respectively
for bone, coconut-shell and wood carbon. Generally,
activations increased densities of the carbons and there
was no significant (p 0.05) difference in densities.
The moisture content was 4.6, 4.4 and 7.3% for bone,
coconut-shell and wood, respectively. The moisture
content increased during activation processes. There was
no significant difference between bone carbon activated
with acid and bone carbon activated with heat. Acid and
heat activated wood carbon had significantly higher
moisture than coconut-shell and bone carbon.
Activated carbon porosity
The results of BET surface area, macropore, mesopore
and micropore volumes of the produced activated carbon