Sustainable Activated Carbon Production via Microwave for Wastewater Treatment: A Comparative Review

This is an era where the application of adsorption and usage of activated carbons (AC) are considered as mainstream water treatments. The upgrade of these materials may only be through its preparation methods, where most researchers have transitioned from using the conventional furnace methods to using microwave ovens. Derived from various precursors, ACs can be the key in developing numerous environmental applications. This paper reviews the development of production processes of AC from various precursors in the past decades by microwave heating. The importance of the applied methodology and how activating conditions play an influential role, such as carbonisation temperature, activation time, and impregnation ratio are also outlined in this review. From the review of AC production processes, ACs produced from various precursors by chemical method with microwave heating have shown to be the significant factor in developing ACs with relatively higher surface area compared to conventional heating ACs.