Volume 01, No. 11, November 2015 Page35 Activated Carbon from Coconut Shell using Fluidized Bed Reactor and its Simulation S. N. Saha* & G. P. Dewangan** *Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Guru GhasidasVishwavidyalaya, (Central University) Bilaspur (C.G.), India **Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Guru GhasidasVishwavidyalaya, (Central University) Bilaspur (C.G.), India ABSTRACT Simulation has been done on the production of chemically activated carbon from coconut shell by pyrolysis using fluidized bed reactor. The effect of process variables such as void fraction, particle size, sphericity, fluidizing velocity, fluidized bubbling bed wake, char density on the design of fluidized bed reactor leading to production and quality of activated carbon have been studied and dealt with in the present paper . The established mathematical equations describing the Fluidized Bed Reactor have been listed for its simulation. MATLAB programming has been done resorting to the real life data obtained from industries fluidized bed reactor for production of activated carbon. KEYWORDS: Activation, Pyrolysis, Activated carbon, Coconut shell, Fluidized bed reactor, MATLAB programming, Simulation . INTRODUCTION Activated carbon is known as a unique and effective agent for purification and recovery of trace material. During the last two to three decades, treatment with active carbon has become an important unit process for separations and purifications in the food, pharmaceuticals, sugar, chemical and other processing industries. Nowadays it is used in widely varied industries like portable and industrial waste water treatment, soft drink, semiconductor, gold recovery, petrochemical, solvent recovery, domestic and waste disposal, air conditioning, fridge deodorization. Activated carbon is an amorphous form of elemental carbon and is prepared by destructive distillation of any one of a variety of carbonaceous raw materials, including wood, coal or coconut shell. It is produced by activation process which is nothing but heating the char in an atmosphere of superheated steam and removal of the tar blocking the micro fine structure of the char. The average ultimate analysis of the coconut shell pyrolysis products express C 48%, O 45.5%, H 5.8%, N 0.3%, S 0.4% which is comparable with other carbon rich bio mass like groundnut shell, walnut shell, peanut shell or almond shell. Bulk density, hardness, and particle size distribution are the most important physical characteristics of activated carbon for better rate of adsorption kinetics. There are mainly three forms of activated carbon –granular irregular shaped size ranging from 0.2 to 5 mm; pelletized extruded and cylindrical shaped with size range from 0.8 to 5 mm and powdered with size less than 0.2 mm. The activated carbon porosity can be measured by the extent of adsorption of iodine from a solution. By ASTM D 28 standard method test, the iodine number gives the total surface areaof activated carbon. According to the market research firm named Roskill, the forecasting data of global activated carbon supply is about 948 KT