Preparation of carbonaceous heavy metal adsorbent from palm shell using sulfur impregnation

We attempt to prepare a heavy metal adsorbent from palm shell with a simple-two step process using pyrolysis and sulfur impregnation. Palm shell was pyrolyzed with three different methods; rapid pyrolysis, slow pyrolysis, and KOH pyrolysis, and the prepared char with high specific surface area was sulfurized with H2S impregnation to obtain the sulfur-impregnated char with the adsorption ability of heavy metals. The pyrolysis char with high specific surface area can be obtained by KOH pyrolysis, which was pre-treated with KOH solution before slow pyrolysis, and can added sulfur into KOH pyrolysis char using H2S gas. The sulfur content of sulfur-impregnated char increased with increasing the time of H2S treatment, and increased the adsorption amount of Pb2+ from aqueous solution. The sulfur impregnated char was more effective for Pb2+ and Zn2+ adsorption than commercial charcoal.