Characterization of BCZY Ceramic Material Prepared with Treated Activated Carbon from Empty Fruit Bunches (EFB)

Abstract

The activated carbon produced from oil palm empty fruit bunches (ACEFB) shows good properties to act as a dispersing agent in the synthesis of BCZY ceramic material. However, the untreated ACEFB (u-ACEFB) shows some impurities still present after calcination. Thus, it has to be functionalized (f-ACEFB) by using chemical treatment. In this work, three samples of bare BCZY, BCZY u-ACEFB and BCZY f-ACEFB were prepared, respectively. The sol-gel method was used to synthesize the BCZY ceramic powder by using metal nitrate salt as a starting material. The ACEFB was added to the metal precursor accordingly and was dried (T=325°C) followed by calcined (T=1100°C). For the fabrication of pellet, the sample was sintered by two-step sintering (TSS) method. The relative density of pellet was measured and calculated. The Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) were conducted to characterize the synthesized BCZY ceramic material. Based on the characterization, BCZY u-ACEFB have the highest relative density among the others, whereas BCZY f-ACEFB have the lowest relative density. The FTIR results further confirmed the presence of the functional groups corresponded to the BCZY. The SEM micrograph shows a spherical structure of BCZY f-ACEFB with grain size around 134 nm. EDX data further confirm the elemental composition of the pellet. It was observed that the f-ACEFB have an outstanding performance as a dispersing agent in BCZY synthesizing route.