Carbon based materials for the decolorization in sugar production

Sugarcane is a main raw material for sugar production. In the production process, sugarcane bagasse is a by- product. Decolorization is a necessary process to reduce the color intensity of sugar syrup. This work aims to develop biomass– based activated carbon that can effectively remove colorants. Activated carbon was prepared from sugarcane bagasse by chemical activation with phosphoric acid at carbonization temperatures ranging from 600 to 900 °C. The porous textures, and functional groups of the as– prepared carbons were investigated by nitrogen adsorption- desorption measurements, X- ray photoelectron spectroscopy ( XPS) and Fourier– transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), respectively. This study investigated the color adsorption ability in a batch adsorption. The effects of adsorption parameters such as contact time, adsorption temperature, and adsorbent dosage, on the adsorption ability, were investigated. The adsorption performance was determined by UV–vis spectrophotometer at 420 nm. The best adsorption performance was observed with activated carbon that was activated at 700 °C (BAC700). Langmuir, Freundlich, and Redlich-Peterson isotherms were used to analyze the experimental adsorption data. BAC700 showed competitive color removal efficiency ( 93. 24%) with the commercially available activated carbon (95.49%) and ion exchange resin (43.60%). The estimated price of sugarcane bagasse-derived activated carbon was about 31.77 baht/ kg.