Characterization and optimization of hydrogel biochar from sawdust by using research surface methodology / Muhammad Fadhil Aiman Ery Sudirman

Hydrogel biochar has gained an attention these past few years because of its unique properties where it can sense the change in environment, hydrophilicity and modifiable composite. This study primarily is to investigate the characterization of hydrogel biochar and secondly to find the optimize ratio to increase its adsorption capacity. From analysis, it was observed that hydrogel biochar with 50% blending ratio possess the highest BET surface area of 1.4183 m2 /g, highest total pore volume of 0.000687 cm3 /g, average pore size of 18.413 Å and 0.01529 mmol/g adsorption capacity. The FTIR analysis shows that the hydrogel contains hydroxyl and carboxyl functional group, which suggest that it has a potential to become adsorbent. The RSM analysis shows that the optimized blending ratio of biochar: fly ash to be 0.54:0.46 and has the maximum value of adsorption capacity of 0.01534 mmol/g.