Preparation of activated carbon from banana peel waste for reducing air pollutant from motorcycle muffler

The exhaust gas or emission from motor vehicle contains various pollutants and some of them are toxic and very harmful for human health. In the present work, we prepared an activated carbon to reduce the toxic pollutants (via adsorption process) from the exhaust gas of the motor vehicle (particularly motorcycle in this work). The activated carbon was prepared from local banana peel which considered as an agricultural waste without economic value. To prepare the activated carbon, banana peel was carbonized using furnace at 500°C. Then the resulted carbon was activated using chemical activation with ZnCl2 and physical activation with either microwave (300 W) or furnace (700°C). The prepared activated carbon was then characterized using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) analysis. The SEM result showed that the pore of microwave induced ZnCl2 activated carbon (ACM) was larger than the pore of virgin char/carbon and furnace induced ZnCl2 activataed carbon (ACF). The FT-IR spectrum of ACM showed some peaks at 3408.59 cm-1, 1589.25 cm-1, and 1093.63 cm-1. They are assigned to O-H stretching, C=O stretching, and C-OH stretching. Additionally, the adsorption performance of the prepared activation carbon to reduce the pollutants concentration (i.e. CO and CH) from the exhaust gas of motor vehicle was investigated. The results showed that the activated carbon induced by microwave and ZnCl2 activation (ACM) gave the best result. The adsorption or removal efficiency of gas CO reached approximately 97.64 %vol