PEMBUATAN DAN KARAKTERISASI KARBON AKTIF DARI BAMBU BETUNG (DENDROCALAMUS ASPER) DENGAN AKTIVASI KOH BERBANTUAN GELOMBANG MIKRO

Abstract

Activated carbon had successfully been made from betung bamboo (Dendrocalamus Asper) by
carbonization process for 1 hour with chemical activation using pottasium hydroxide (KOH) with the
mass ratio of the carbon powder with KOH i.e. 1:0, 1:1, 1:2 and 2:1. In order to activate the carbon,
the activation was help by microwave irradiation with the power of 630 Watt for 20 minutes. The
purpose of this research is to characterize activated carbon using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourirer
Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and absorption of methylene blue. The data of X-ray
diffraction pattern indicated that all of the activated carbon were in a semi-crystalline form, with the
XRD peaks observed at angel of diffraction (2θ) of 21.268o and 41.014o with oriented of (002) and
(100) respectively. The highest value of layer (Lc) is resulted from the ratio 1:1 as high as 21.495 nm
and this data supported by the highestabsorption of methylene blue at ratio 1:1 as high as 99.327
mg/g. Characterization of FTIR showed that the activated carbon had the function of cluster –OH, CH
and C=C. Overall the calculated and analyzed results showed that the variation of KOH
concentration influences the qualities of the activated carbon.