Activated carbon (AC) with high purity and surface area was synthesized from rice husk (RH) using alkali
leaching at room temperature. Regular and pyridine FT-IR analysis had shown that the AC sample consists
mainly of C@C aromatic bonds and did not have Brønsted or Lewis acid sites respectively. In addition,
the XRD patterns indicate that all AC samples were amorphous with slight micro-crystalline features
due to the appearance of broad peaks at 2h = 24 and 44 respectively. The maximum surface area
obtained from the BET analysis was 2696 m2 g1 for the KOH activated carbon at 850 C with an impregnation
ratio of 1:5 (RHC:KOH) under nitrogen flow. The SEM images also revealed the highly porous nature
of the AC resulting in the high surface area. The TGA-DTG analysis of the AC samples showed that the
samples are thermally stable up to 900 C in nitrogen atmosphere.