Kyushu University Global COE Program
Journal of Novel Carbon Resource Sciences, Vol. 7, pp. 7-11, Feb. 2013

Investigation on H2S Removal Factors of Activated Carbons
Derived from Waste Palm TrunkNor’Azizi Bin Othman*1,*2, Taegon Kim*3, Akinobu Imamura*1,
Jin Miyawaki*4, Isao Mochida*3, Seong-Ho Yoon*1,*4*1

Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University, Japan
Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia*3
Research and Education Center of Carbon Resources, Kyushu University, Japan*4
Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan*2(Received November 1, 2012; accepted December 4, 2012)
Critical factors for H2S removal of activated carbons prepared from a waste palm trunk were investigated. Twokinds of activated carbons were prepared by different methods, steam and KOH activations. Regardless of highspecific surface area and oxygen content of the KOH-activated carbon, the steam-activated carbon showed more than
11 times higher H2S removal performance, which was even higher than a commercial activated carbon fiber. It wassuggested that minerals contained in the steam-activated carbon acted effectively to remove H2S. The results suggest
a potential utilization of waste palm trunks as an available cheap precursor for the H2S removal adsorbent.

1. Introduction

pulverized and sieved to 100–250 μm, and then carbonized at 500 oC for 1 h in N2. The carbonized WPT wasthen activated by steam or KOH activation method. For
the steam activation, 90% steam with N2 carrier at 150oC was supplied to the horizontal furnace, in which thecarbonized WPT was set at the center, at isothermal temperature of 650 oC for 1 h. The obtained steam-activatedbiochar was designated as SAC. The KOH activation wascarried out as follows; firstly, a mixture of KOH and thecarbonized WPT at mixing ratio of 2:1 was heated to 600oC at a ramping rate of 10 oC/min, and then held at 600oC for 1 h. After cooling down to room temperature, thespecimen was washed with distilled water once, withconc. HCl solution for three times, and then with distilledwater once again to be pH ~ 7 to remove catalyst residues, followed by drying in an air oven at 80–100 oC for 3h and in a vacuum oven at 150 oC for more than 3 h. Thus
obtained KOH-activated biochar was referred to as KAC.

In Malaysia, as oil palm cultivations are actively
carrying on and trees about 25–30 years old are usuallyreplanted, huge amounts of biowastes, such as tree
branches, fruit shells, fronds, and trunks, are regularly
generated1). Various attempts for recycling the biowastes
have been examined1–4). Among them, preparations ofactivated carbons via pyrolysis of solid biowastes are
one of hopeful ways to solve a part of environmental
problems and to produce useful material at the sametime1–3,5). The trunks take up the largest weight among
the palm tree wastes, and thus it is the most importanttask to find out its effective utilization for environmental
protection.
Malaysia is also one of principal natural gas-producing
countries. However, Malaysian crude natural gas issour because maximum 1% of hydrogen sulfide, H2S,
is involved in typical Malaysian crude natural gases6).
Therefore, it is strongly required to refine the crude
natural gas prior to the shipping.
Recently, we have been studying the production ofactivated carbons which can be specialized to use for
the H2S removal in the natural gas using waste palm tree
trunk, a typical biowaste in Malaysia, as a raw material.
In this study, the factors to govern the adsorption amountof H2S of activated carbons prepared from waste palm
trunk were investigated to develop an optimum method
to prepare cheap and effective H2S removal adsorbent for
the refinement of the Malaysian crude natural gas.

2.2 Sample characterization
Porosities were evaluated by the αS analysis of nitrogen
adsorption isotherms measured at 77 K by a volumetricequipment (NOVA 4200e, Quantachrome Instruments).
Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and ash contents were measured using an elemental analyzer (MT2 CHN Corder,Yanako). The assay of O (Odiff) was defined by subtracting a sum of the contents of C, H, and N from 100%.
Elemental compositions of ashes were analyzed by X-ray
fluorescence analysis (XRF, EDX-800, Shimadzu Co.).
Microscopic structural features and elemental compositions were analyzed using a scanning electron microscopy (SEM, JSM-6320F, JEOL) equipped with an energy
dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX, LINK ISIS, Oxford Instruments plc) at operation voltage of 15 keV. The
crystal structure of ashes was studied using an X-ray diffractometer (XRD, Ultima III, Rigaku Co.) with a mono-

2. Experimental

2.1 Sample preparation
A dried waste palm trunk (WPT, less than 2 wt.% ofmoisture content) was supplied from the Malaysian Palm
Oil Board (MPOB), Malaysia. The dried WPT was first-7-Journal of Novel Carbon Resource Sciences, Vol.7, Feb. 2013

11% to 18% by the steam activation, but that of KAC became zero (Table 1). It was likely that the ashes in KAC
were removed away by the washing with conc. HCl after
the KOH activation. N2 adsorption isotherms at 77 K and
the analyzed data of porosity of KAC and SAC are shownin Fig. 1 and Table 1. As expected from the activation
yield, KAC possessed well-developed porous structures,
though both KAC and SAC were microporous and theiraverage pore widths, w, calculated by the αS analysis
were almost same.

chromic CuKα radiation at 40 kV and 30 mA at room
temperature. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS,JPS-9000MC, JEOL) measurements were carried out
with a monochromatic MgKα radiation (1253 eV) under
7×10 –7 Pa. The acceleration tension and emission currentof the X-ray source were 10 kV and 10 mA. The C1s peakof graphitic carbon (284.6 eV) was used as a reference tocalibrate the binding energy scale.

2.3 H2S removal test

Adsorption amount of N 2 (mg/g)

Assessments of the H2S removal performance of theWPT-derived activated carbons, SAC and KAC, werecarried out by using a home-made fixed-bed reactor. Asa reference, a commercially available activated carbon
fiber, OG7A, was also tested. A 200 mg of each sample
was loaded in a glass tube (9 mm in inner diameter, 12mm in outer diameter, and 440 mm in length) and kept
at 30 oC. The length of the packed samples was set to be
26–30 mm. A standard gas of H2S (100 ppmv) balancedby pure N2 was purchased from Asahi Sanso Company,Japan. The H2S/N2 mixed gas was diluted with pureN2 to be 50 ppmv of the inlet H2S concentration, andintroduced through the sample at total flow rate of 50mL/min. The outlet gases were periodically collected
in gasbags, and the H2S concentrations were measured
using a gas chromatography with a flame photometricdetector (GC-FPD, GC2800FPD, Yanaco Co. Ltd.). The
breakthrough time was defined as the time, at which H 2S
was first detected in the outlet gas.

600
500
400

SAC
KAC
OG7A

300
200
10003. Results and discussion

00.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
Relative pressure, P/P01Fig. 1 N2 adsorption isotherms of steam- and KOH-activated WPT samples (SAC and KAC) and a commercial activated carbon fiber (OG7A) at 77 K.

3.1 Sample characterization
Carbonization yield of the dried WPT was 36.2%,
which was comparable with the reported values2). During the carbonization, large amounts of volatiles wereremoved, giving rise to remarkable increases of C andash contents and decreases of H and O contents (Table1). Yields of the carbonized WPT after steam and KOH
activations were 75.9 and 60.7%, respectively, suggestinghigher developments of porosity for KAC than for SAC.
Both activation processes induced a decrease of the Ccontent and an increase of the O content (Table 1). Interms of the ash content, however, there was a remarkable difference; the ash content of SAC increased fromTable 1

700

3.2 H2S removal test

Fig. 2 shows H2S breakthrough curves for SAC andKAC. Results of OG7A, a commercial activated carbon
fiber, are also shown in Fig. 2 as a benchmark. For allcases, no H2S was detected in the outlet gas just after
the introduction of the 50 ppmv H2S mixed gas to thesamples, and then the outlet H2S concentration started
to increase after the certain period passed. From theseresults, breakthrough times were calculated, which are

Elemental composition from CHN analysis and porosity of dried and treated WPT samples and a commercial
activated carbon fiber (OG7A)

Elemental composition
Porosity
Ashasb
VTcwdCH
N
O(diff)a2
3(wt.%)(wt.%)(m /g)(cm /g)(nm)(wt.%)(wt.%)(wt.%)
Dried WPT
45.72
5.84
0.37
48.06
3.09
Carbonized WPT
80.79
2.55
0.57
16.09
11.07
SAC
74.19
2.08
0.17
23.55
18.40
577
0.23
0.79
KAC
55.74
3.73
0.10
40.43
0.00
1852
0.72
0.78
OG7A
88.96
1.19
0.69
9.16
0.00
595
0.24
0.81
aOxygen content calculated as O(diff) = 100 – (C + H + N), b specific surface area, c total pore volume, d average pore widthSamples-8-

Investigation on H2S Removal Factors of Activated Carbons Derived from Waste Palm Trunk

3.3 Analysis of minerals in SAC

H2S concentration in outlet gas (ppmv)

tabulated in Table 2. Regardless of the much higherspecific surface area of KAC (Table 1), SAC showed
the remarkably long breakthrough time of 390 min;as compared with the commercial activated carbon
fiber having similar porosity, the breakthrough timeof SAC was more than 8 times longer. On the otherhand, although KAC and OG7A showed steep uptakesof the outlet H2S concentration after the breakthroughtimes passed, the breakthrough curve of SAC relatively
gradually increased with time. Therefore, total removed
amount of H2S by SAC was much larger than that by KAC
or OG7A, more than 11 or 15 times, respectively (Table2). Here, the total removed amount of H2S was estimatedby subtracting total amount of H2S detected in the outlet
gases from total introduced amount of H2S from time 0
to the time when the outlet H2S concentration becamesame with the inlet one, 50 ppmv. The results suggestthat porosity is not necessarily the predominant factor
for the H2S removal. Also, the large oxygen contentof KAC seemed not to contribute to increase the H2S
removal capability. It should be noted that, moreover, theactivated carbon derived from WPT has a great potential
as the H2S adsorbent, even compared to the commercialadsorbent.

Besides the specific surface area and oxygen content,
there was a critical difference between SAC and KAC,
which was the ash content (Table 1). It has been reported
that potassium acts as a catalyst and/or reactant to fix H2S
on carbon adsorbent as sulfur in a presence of oxygen7–9).
Although the H2S removal tests in this report were
performed in oxygen-free atmosphere, we hypothesizedthat some elements in SAC worked to fix H2S effectively.
Therefore, detailed analyses of minerals in SAC wereperformed.
In Table 3, elemental compositions determined fromthe XRF analyses of SAC before and after the H2S
removal test are shown. It was found that K was theprimal inorganic element of the pristine SAC, followedby Cl and Si. After the H2S removal test, the S content
remarkably increased from 1.5 to 16%; this increase
should be due to the fixed H2S on SAC. An increase of
the S content resulted in decreases of other elements after
H2S adsorption experiments, relatively, although nonuniform distributions of elements in biomass-derived
materials could give rise to some errors in quantitative
analysis results.
The fixation of H2S was also confirmed by SEMEDX results. As shown in Fig. 3(a), SAC before the H2S
removal test showed only peaks of K, Cl, and Si except
for O and C. After the H2S removal test, however, anintense S peak was indeed observed (Fig. 3(b)). On theother hand, in the case of KAC, only very weak peaks ofS and Cl were found before the H2S removal test; evenafter the H2S removal test, an increment of the S peakintensity was slight, which agreed with the H2S removal
test results.
Fig. 4 shows XRD patterns of SAC before and after theH2S removal test. Besides broad peaks originated from(002) and (10) diffractions of graphitic structures, somesharp peaks were observed. The characteristic peaks
were assigned to KCl10). Not remarkable changes werefound after the H2S removal test.
XPS results supported a presence of KCl in SAC (Fig.
5). Binding energies of K2p3/2 of SAC before the H2Sremoval test was found to be about 293.2 eV, which wasin agreement with the literature data of 293.6 eV, when
we considered a difference of the reference value for thebinding energy scale calibration (0.4 eV)11). A peak at 295.7
eV would be due to a satellite peak of K2p1/2; although it
has not been clearly mentioned, such satellite peak can beseen in the literature11). Furthermore, the binding energyof Cl2p peak of SAC before the H2S removal test, 198.8eV, almost agreed with the reported value, 199.2 eV11),
taking into account the aforementioned difference of thereference value. In the K2p XPS spectrum of SAC before
the H2S removal test, another peak was certainly observed,
whilst the intensity was not so strong. At present, we werenot able to assign the peak at high binding energy of 298.2eV, but it might be attributed to complex oxides, such as
KFeOx. For example, although it has not been clearly

6050
403020SACKACOG7A

1001000 1500 2000 2500
Time (min)Fig. 2 H2S breakthrough curves of steam- and KOHactivated WPT samples (SAC and KAC) and acommercial activated carbon fiber (OG7A) at303 K. Inlet H2S concentration = 50 ppmv.
Table 2Samples

SAC
KAC
OG7A

0500

H2S removal performance of WPT-derived
activated carbons and a commercial activatedcarbon fiber (OG7A)
Breakthroughtime (min)390
60
45Total removed amountof H2S (mL/g)
12.4
1.1
0.8-9-

Journal of Novel Carbon Resource Sciences, Vol.7, Feb. 2013

Table 3Elemental composition from XRF analysis of SAC samples before and after H2S removal test (wt.%)

Samples
Before H2S test
After H2S test
aK
70.36
56.45

Cl
19.48
19.34

Si
7.05
5.90

S
1.47
16.21

Fe0.97
0.82

P
0.24
0.77

Cr
0.23
0.22

Cu
0.15
0.13

Rb0.06
0.05

Ni
n.d.a
0.06

Br
n.d.a
0.06

Not detected.

(a)
K
Cl
Si

before H2S test

K

Intensity (a.u.)O
100 μm

(b)

SK
ClO

after H2S test
KCl
(PDF#98-000-0101)

SiK

100 μm

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
2 theta (degree)(c)Fig. 4 XRD profiles of steam-activated WPT (SAC)
before and after H2S removal test.

Oassigned, shoulder peaks at 298.0 and 299.0 eV have been
observed in K2p XPS spectra of Fe-K-O catalysts12). This
not-assigned peak at 298.2 eV decreased its intensity after
the H2S removal test (Fig. 5(c)). These results suggest thata certain kind of potassium compounds involved in SAC
might work as the effective H2S removal agent even at asmall quantity.

S Cl

100 μm(d)4. Conclusions
OSCl

100 μmFig. 3 SEM-EDX results of (a) SAC before H2S removal test, (b) SAC after H2S removal test, (c) KAC
before H2S removal test, and (d) KAC after H2S
removal test. (left) SEM images; (right) EDX
spectra.

Activated carbon prepared by the simple steam
activation technique from a type of biowastes, Malaysian
waste palm trunk (WPT), was demonstrated to exhibit
the excellent H2S removal performance; the H2S removal
capacity was more than 11 or 15 times of the KOHactivated WPT or the commercial activated carbon
fiber. It was found that high specific surface area is notnecessarily indispensable, but minerals involved in theWPT-derived activated carbon were suggested to beeffective for the H2S removal.
Given the great abundance of biowastes, such as WPT,- 10 -Investigation on H2S Removal Factors of Activated Carbons Derived from Waste Palm Trunkin Malaysia, and the requisite to remove H2S containedin the Malaysian natural gas, the present study wasconsidered to suggest a feasibility of on-site regeneration
and utilization of biowastes at low cost.

(a) K2p (before)

Acknowledgements: The authors gratefully acknowledge
the financial support provided by the Global Center ofExcellence (G-COE) of Kyushu University.
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1)

Binding energy (eV)(b) Cl2p (before)

Binding energy (eV)(c) K2p (after)

Binding energy (eV)Fig. 5

XPS spectra of (a) K 2p and (b) Cl 2p for SAC
before H2S removal test and (c) K 2p for SAC
after H2S removal test. (Black lines) observedspectra; (blue lines) deconvoluted peaks; (redlines) reproduced spectra by a sum of deconvoluted peaks.

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