The Physical Characteristics of Activated Carbon-Derived Sugarcane Bagasse/FeF3 Composite
Luh Krisnawati(a), Ariono Verdianto(b), Iwa Garniwa, M.K.(a), Rudy Setiabudy(c), and Chairul Hudaya(a*)

(a) Department of Electrical Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia
(b) Production Division, PT PLN (Persero) Unit Pelaksana Produksi dan Workshop, Bandung, Indonesia
(c) Department of Electrical Engineering, Institut Teknologi PLN, Jakarta, Indonesia

Abstract

Sugarcane bagasse is one of the major agricultures wastes that is enormously produced in agro-industrial complex in Indonesia. Considering the carbon content of this bio waste as well as the cost-effective in the preparation, sugarcane bagasse is an ideal candidate to fabricate an activated carbon that has a potential to be used in energy storage applications. This study presents a pyrolysis technique to fabricate activated carbon derived from sugarcane bagasse (SBAC) combined with FeF3 composite (SBACF) after a complete activation process. SBAC was prepared by applying a two-step technique that is pyrolysis and subsequential chemical activation process. The SBACF composite was fabricated by applying planetary dry ball-milling technique. The BET measurement indicated a preferable physical characteristic of SBAC properties regarding the adsorption, including high specific surface area and pore volume. The specific surface area of the composite^s material has a large surface area of 1749-1940 m2 g-1 with total pore volume of 1.05 - 1.17 cm3 g-1. This high surface area of this composite properties is comparable to most of the activated carbon produced from another bio waste source, fulfilling the criteria often expected for commercial use. The results of SEM characterization show surface structure of the SBAC/FeF3 composite is amorphous, characterized by a variety of particle shapes and sizes. The Raman spectroscopy examination of these composites indicates that the ID/IG ratio are 0.91 to 0.97. The low ID/IG ratio indicates that the carbon structure maintains a high level of order. This result suggested that the additional FeF3 strategy could significantly enhance the physical properties of the SBAC which has potential to be used for energy storage application such as supercapacitor and battery electrode where a large surface area is one of the essential features.

Keywords: Physical characteristic, activated carbon, sugarcane baggase, FeF3, composite

Topic: Material Physics