Activated carbons were prepared from durian shell by chemical activation with potassium hydroxide. In
order to find the optimum pore characteristics, different KOH to durian shell ratio (0.25–1.0) and
activation temperature (673–923 K) was employed. The adsorption isotherm of activated carbons
produced within these range of temperature and impregnation ratio is a mixture of type I and type IV
isotherms. While activated carbons obtained at low chemical impregnation ratio of 0.25 were essentially
microporous, with higher impregnation ratio, they become predominantly mesoporous. KOH to durian
shell ratio of 0.5 and activation temperature of 773 K can be pinpointed as the optimum condition to
obtain high surface area activated carbon