Abstract
Activated carbons (ACs) were prepared by pyrolysis of seeds mango in presence of sodium and potassium hydroxide (chemical activities). Seeds mango from Colombian Mango cultives were impregnated with aqueous solutions of NaOH and KOH following a variant of the incipient wetness method. Different concentrations were used to produce impregnation ratios of 3:1 (weight terms). Activation was carried out under argon flow by heating to 823 K with 1 h soaking time. The porous texture of the obtained ACs was characterized by physical adsorptions of N2 at 77 K and CO2 at 273 K. The impregnation ration and hydroxide type had a strong influence on the pore structure of these ACs, which could be easily controlled by simply varying the proportion of the hydroxides used in the activation. Thus, the development of porosity for precursors with low structural order (high reactivity) is better with NaOH than KOH, whereas the opposite is observed for the highly ordered ones. Variable adsorption capacities and porosity distributions can be achieved depending on the activating agent selected. In general, KOH produces activated carbons with narrower micropore distributions than those prepared by NaOH.