A novel approach to develop activated carbon by an ingenious hydrothermal treatment methodology using Phyllanthus emblica fruit stone

An eco-friendly, advent, and innovative approach has been applied for the sustainable development of hydrothermally treated material from Phyllanthus emblica fruit stone (PEFS) to develop activated carbon. PEFS which is economical and has no significant value was typically used as a precursor for hydrothermal treatment at a low pressure utilizing an ordinary cost-effective hydrothermal autoclave. The hydrothermally treated Phyllanthus emblica fruit stone (HTPEFS) so developed was used for the production of activated carbon in an oxidising atmosphere (air). The morphological structure, textural properties and functional groups of the raw PEFS, HTPEFS and activated carbon prepared from HTPEFS were characterised by ICP, FT-IR, TGA, XRD, FE-SEM and BET analysis. To demonstrate the significance of the hydrothermal treatment, in this study a comparison has been made for activated carbons developed from hydrothermally treated Phyllanthus emblica fruit stone, and without hydrothermally treated Phyllanthus emblica fruit stone under similar experimental condition (400$°C$, 90 min). The BET surface area and the total pore volume of activated carbon developed from hydrothermally treated Phyllanthus emblica fruit stone (569 m²g^-1, 0.342 cm³g^-1) was comparatively higher than without hydrothermally treated Phyllanthus emblica fruit stone (486 m²g^-1, 0.289 cm³g^-1). Hydrothermal treatment removes inorganic constituents from the biomass and consequently decreases reactivity resulting in the development of activated carbon having a well-developed surface area and pore volume. This study introduced a new prospect for the development of better porous material after hydrothermal treatment at a low pressure by exploiting economical autoclave.