Conversion of waste banana peel into activated carbon using microwave pyrolysis

Abstract

Biomass recovery is very important in agricultural waste management as it solves the waste disposal problems effectively by not disposing the wastes through current disposal method like landfilling and incineration. The current disposal method produces secondary pollution like leachate, smog and ash which need further treatment. In this experiment, the waste banana peel was converted into activated carbon by chemical activation using microwave pyrolysis. The chemical activation using potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide increases the pore size distribution on the surface of activated carbon. The effect of microwave power towards microwave pyrolysis was studied at several microwave power adjustment (300W, 500W and 700W) to determine highly porous activated carbon.