Abstract—Coconut is produced in large quantities in South Western part of Nigeria especially in Badagry area of Lagos State. The fleshy part (mesocarp) is either eaten of used to process oil while the husks is usually discharged and constitute a waste. In this work the coconut husks were carbonated and used to produce activated carbon using Zinc Chloride as the activating agent. The resulting activated carbon was used to catalyze the reduction of hexamine cobalt (III) to hexamine cobalt (II). Hexamine cobalt (II) is used for retrofitting the simulation removal of SO2 and NO from flue gases released from power plants. The factors studied in this paper include the effects of the following factors on the kinetics of the reaction: stirring speed, particle size distribution, mass of activation carbon, initial concentration of hexamine cobalt (III), temperature and pH. The results indicate that optimum condition for the conversion of the reduction reaction are for pH of 2.6, stirring speed of 400rpm particle size distribution of 150-200 mesh size. However, the rate of reaction was found to first order with respect to hexamine Cobalt (III) and increases with concentration of carbon mass, initial concentration of the feed and temperature.
Index Terms—Activated carbon, coconut, hexamine cobalt, kinetics.
Olusegun Sodeinde (e-mail: segunsodeinde@yahoo.com).
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Cite: Sodeinde O. A., "Preparation of a Locally Produced Activated Carbon from Coconut Shells and Its Use in Reducing Hexamine Cobalt(III)," International Journal of Chemical Engineering and Applications vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 67-71, 2012.
