Abstract
Activated carbons with high surface area of 2,600 $m^{2}/g$ and high pore volume of 1.2 cc/g could be prepared by KOH activation of rice hulls at a KOH:char ratio of 4:1 and $850^{\circ}C$. In order to increase the adsorption capacity of hydrogen sulfide, which is one of the major malodorous component in the waste water treatment process, various contents of $Na_{2}CO_{3}$ and $KIO_{3}$ were impregnated to the rice-hull activated carbon. The impregnated activated carbon with 5 wt.% of $Na_{2}CO_{3}$ showed improved $H_{2}S$ adsorption capacity of 75 mg/g which is twice of that for the activated carbon without impregnation and the impregnated activated carbon with 2.4 wt.% of $KIO_{3}$ showed even higher $H_{2}S$ adsorption capacity of 97 mg/g. The improvement of $H_{2}S$ adsorption capacity by the introduction of those chemicals could be due to the $H_{2}S$ oxidation and chemical reaction with impregnated materials in addition to the physical adsorption of activated carbon.
