The effect of pretreatment process has been studied on the properties of prepared activated carbons (AC) from scrap tires. The activation of ACs was chemically performed by KOH as activating agent. Different pretreatment agents have been used including toluene and three strong acids (nitric, hydrochloric, and sulfuric). The obtained results indicate that the pretreatment process can significantly improve the adsorption capacity (iodine number) of the prepared ACs. The toluene-H2SO4 pretreatment process yielded the best results improving the iodine number of the ACs up to 20%. The carbon yield of around 25% with density of 0.31 g/cm3 was achieved for the ACs pretreated with toluene-H2SO4 and chemically activated with KOH. The surface characteristics of ACs were studied by scanning electron microscopy revealing structural transformation of the ACs into well-developed porous media caused by toluene-H2SO4 pretreatment.

Keywords