Effect of sorbent weight on Hydrogen Sulphide (H₂S) removal by biochar and hydrogel biochar derived from rice husk / Amirul Rahman Mohd Nor

Biochar has received great attention recently as it has the potential to be alternative absorbent beside the long existence, activated carbon. In this study, biochar was produced from rice husk by slow pyrolysis at temperature of 450°C. To increase the performance of the biochar in absorbing H₂S, hydrogel biochar was produced by performing polymerization. The characteristics analysis in elemental analysis, functional group, surface area, pore volume and pore size had been done on rice husk, biochar and hydrogel biochar. In this study, the percentage of carbon is increase when the rice husk undergo pyrolysis on order to obtain biochar and the percentage is decrease when the biochar being polymerize into hydrogel biochar. The biochar lost some functional group compare to rice husk as the the pyrolysis remove the volatile matter from the rice husk and the polymerization add new functional group to the sample. Biochar has the highest amount of pore volume compare to both rice husk and hydrogel biochar as the vacant space available as volatile matter remove during pyrolysis and the monomer filled up the pore during the polymerization.Then, the absorption of H₂S with sorbent weight as parameter has been performed on biochar and hydrogel biochar. The result of H₂S absorption by biochar showed that the mass of H₂S per weight of sorbent increase as the sorbent weight increase. However, the hydrogel biochar unable to perform the result that being predicted. From the past study, the water content may affect the capability of the hydrogel biochar to absorb H₂S.