Elemental analysis of bamboo charcoal from gigantochloa albociliata

Bamboo the most abundant plant in the world has attracted a lot of interests due to their excellent potentials in many ways. The bamboo charcoal itself can be utilized in water purification, electromagnetic wave absorber, blood purification and even dye sensitized solar cell. In Malaysia, elements of bamboo charcoal from Gigantochloa Albociliata have not yet been studied. Properties of bamboo charcoal totally depend on the applied temperature and time during carbonization and activation process. In this paper, elemental analysis of carbonized bamboo charcoal at 500°C and activated bamboo charcoal at 900°C and 1100°C has been performed using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) after being prepared in two different mediums; DI water and ethanol. The results show that carbonized samples CS64 TK and CS88M show similar trend of peak in both solvents. Some peaks at 3278 cm-1 and 1637 cm-1 which attribute to O-H (stretching) and C-H (stretching) were broader for both samples in DI water compared to ethanol. In ethanol, some bands like 2886 cm-1 (C-H stretching), 1394 cm-1 (C-H bending), 1057 cm-1 (CO-O-CO stretching) and 872 cm-1 (C-H bending) were clearly observed. Similar results were obtained for activated samples; ABC900 and ABC1100. From the XRD analysis, it was confirmed that carbonized and activated bamboo charcoal were amorphous carbon. As the activation temperature increased up to 1100°C, the d0002 spacing decreased while the graphite crystallite size LC(0002) increased.