Conversion of municipal garden waste to activated carbon: Laboratory production and characterization comparing production parameters.

• Municipal GW can be used as a sustainable and low-cost precursor to generate AC. • Activation process enhanced the surface area and internal micro-mesoporous structure. • Higher activation temperature has significant influence on AC characteristics. • No significant difference in AC characteristics generated in 1-step and 2-step. • Carbon structure, thermal stability of synthetic AC is comparable to commercial AC. This research aims to investigate the potential of the municipal garden waste as a new precursor to generate activated carbon by CO 2 activation. TGA analysis shows the distinctive thermal degradation nature of garden waste. The activation of the garden waste enhanced its surface area where well-developed internal micro-mesoporous structure is also noticed. The results suggest that most of the volatiles decomposed at temperatures beyond 450 °C. A decrease in char yield, increase in surface area and pore volume and weakening of oxygen and hydrogen-containing groups were observed at higher pyrolysis temperatures. Raman and XRD support the amorphous and porous graphitic structure of carbon. Carbonization temperature of 500 °C and activation temperature of 800 °C were shown to produce the better-quality AC where highest surface area of 363.32 m2/g and highest pore volume of 0.095 cm3/g was achieved. Compared to the pyrolysis temperature, pyrolysis steps did not have notable contribution to the AC characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]