Besides being able to be directly used as fuel, for charcoal production and torrified products, palm kernel shells can also be processed for higher added value which is activated carbon. One of the advantages of activated carbon from palm kernel shells is that the majority of micropore is more than 80%. This makes it suitable for recovering gold and silver from the solution. Another thing that makes it suitable for the application is because of the level of its hardness. Activated carbon from palm kernel shells will have characteristics similar to activated carbon from coconut shell. The form of granule is activated carbon which is commonly used for recovery of gold and silver. The granule shape is made by crushing both coconut shells and palm kernel shells to a certain size.
 |
| Rotating Kiln For Steam (Physical) Activation |
Indonesian and Malaysian palm kernel shell production is huge, which is more than 15 million tons per year from palm oil mills waste. There are around 17 million hectares of palm oil plantations from both countries as palm oil sources and are the largest in the world today. The use of palm kernel shells can be optimized for the production of activated carbon. Activated carbon demand is predicted to increase by about 10% per year and the demand reaches nearly 4 million tons in 2021 valued at 8.12 billion USD (while data in 2015 recorded global production of 2.7 million tons of of activated carbon valued at USD 4.74 billion). Powdered activated carbon (PAC) has the largest market share followed by granular activated carbon (GAC) .The high demand for PAC is mainly driven by the needs in a number of industries such as chemicals, petrochemicals, food and beverages for decolorizarion and deodorization applications. Liquid phase application have the largest portion for usage of activated carbon. Asia Pacific region is the largest market location for activated carbon, and the location of Indonesia and Malaysia which are rich in palm kernel shells is also in the Asia Pacific region, meaning that producers and markets can be in one region, so they should also be the main players of this commodity .
As awareness of sustainability increasing, the production of activated carbon from renewable raw materials will be expanded. It should be noted that world activated carbon production is currently dominated by activated carbon from non-renewable raw materials which reach up to 80% and partly produced in western countries. Activated carbon production can be carried out by chemical or physical activation. Chemical activation is not so much done on an industrial scale because of the associated environmental pollution, although the yield is higher and the operating temperature used is lower. Physical activation, especially with the steam, is the type of activation that is suitable for palm kernel shells and mostly operated today. Rotary kilns are the most widely used equipment for steam or physical activation.
Before being activated, the palm kernel shell is made into charcoal. The charcoal production process is still largely traditional, which makes a lot of air pollution, small yields and large energy losses. Modernization of technology for charcoal production needs to be done to overcome the above. Pyrolysis or continuous carbonization is a technology for charcoal production which is the activated carbon raw material. The pyrolysis or continuous carbonization will also make the activated carbon production process very efficient. This is because one of the highest cost components for the activated carbon production process can be fulfilled from the side products of continuous pyrolysis namely syngas and biooil. For more details can be read here.
