Preparation and activation of bio-carbon from bamboo
To investigate the process of biocarbon preparation the carbonization of bamboo stems was investigated. With this purpose the bamboo stems were cut into pieces of 150 x 40 x 25 mm and then heated in stainless steel reactor with the speed 2 °C/min. After cooling in the atmosphere of pyrolysis gases a crude charcoal was subjected to activation in rotating reactor by steam at the temperature 970 °C and permanent flow of gaseous nitrogen and finally the mass losses were determined. To detect the characteristic features of thermodestruction of bamboo stems compared with those for birch wood the dependences of mass losses versus temperature were used which reveal clear endothermic peak at 360 °C. Taking into consideration the similarity of chemical composition of bamboo and birch this difference could be attributed only to morphological structure of bamboo tissues. By scanning electron microscopy it was demonstrated that activation of crude biochar leads to the rise in number of pores in charcoal with simultaneous changes of cross-section of pores which becomes ellipsoid in the shape after activation. Iodine method to measure an adsorption activity of activated charcoal was applied and it was determined that its activity ranges from 20 to 60%. A good agreement of this value with weight losses during activation is found. An increase of the time of activation results in increase of adsorption activity of target bamboo charcoal.