Sustainable Environment Journal Article

Sustainable Environment

An international journal of environmental health and sustainability

ISSN: 2765-8511 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/oaes21

An experimental study of application of activated carbon from nipa fruit waste on herbal drinks

Susinggih Wijana, Husna Atikah, Widhistya Kartikaningrum, Dodyk Pranowo & Hendrix Yulis Setyawan |

To cite this article: Susinggih Wijana, Husna Atikah, Widhistya Kartikaningrum, Dodyk Pranowo & Hendrix Yulis Setyawan | (2023) An experimental study of application of activated carbon from nipa fruit waste on herbal drinks, Sustainable Environment, 9:1, 2173024, DOI: 10.1080/27658511.2023.2173024

To link to this article: https://www.carmenthyssenmalaga.org 2023 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

Published online: 07 Feb 2023.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 2514

View related articles

Citing articles: 3 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.carmenthyssenmalaga.org ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY, POLLUTION & WASTE MANAGEMENT | RESEARCH ARTICLE

An experimental study of application of activated carbon from nipa fruit waste on herbal drinks

Susinggih Wijana a, Husna Atikah a, Widhistya Kartikaningrum a, Dodyk Pranowo a and Hendrix Yulis Setyawan a

a Department of Agroindustrial Technology, Faculty of Agricultural Technology, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Nipa is one of the palm family, and 60% of the fruit is biomass waste. One of the utilizations of the waste is to be converted into activated carbon. In the present research, the nipa waste was pyrolyzed, and the biochar, a by-product of the pyrolysis process, was activated using HCl. The nipa’s fruit waste activated carbon (NWAC) was then experimentally used to remove the distinct odours of Noni and Mangosteen herbal drinks. The characteristics of the NWAC produced in this study have a water content of 15.08%, ash content of 8.77%, volatile matter of 8.51%, carbon content of 67.6%, yield of 95.49%, iodine adsorption of 966.98 mg/g, and surface area of 1066.39 m 2/g. The characteristics of the Noni herbal drink after NWAC adsorption showed that the highest total dissolved solids of 6.97 °Brix was treated with 25% NWAC addition. The lowest IC50 value was 4.4 ppm, and it was gradually increased with the addition of the NWAC. The addition of NWAC decreased the total phenol in the Mangosteen peel herbal drink, but the effect was insignificant in the Noni herbal drink. Antioxidant activity values ranged from 16% to 37% in the Mangosteen herbal drink, and 30% to 55% in the Noni herbal drink. The total dissolved solids ranged between 4 and 7 °Brix in both herbal drinks. Overall, the addition of NWAC improved the quality of the herbal drinks, but the optimum condition needs to be quantified.

ARTICLE HISTORY

Received 19 November 2022 Accepted 21 January 2023

KEYWORDS

Activated Carbon; Nipa; Noni; Mangosteen; Herbal Drink

1. Introduction

Activated carbon (AC) is a porous material with a carbon content of up to 85% to 95%. The AC is biochar made from biomass pyrolysis (Cui et al., 2022). Biochar can be activated using chemicals, vapour, or carbon dioxide. The activation process aims to open pores in biochar to increase adsorption of odour and colour (Kang et al., 2022). One of the biomass sources that has not been utilised is Nipa’s fruit waste.

Nipa ( Nypa fruticans Wurmb ) is part of the mangrove forest ecosystem, belongs to the Palmae family, and grows in tidal areas. One nipa tree produces 5 kg fruits, of which the fruit waste reaches approximately 3 kg (Yub Harun et al., 2021). Fibre and shell of nipa’s fruit contain high carbon element (Tamunaidu & Saka, 2011). The main contents of the nipa fruit waste are cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin (Tamunaidu & Saka, 2011). The nature of the waste with high cellulose and hemicellulose content could produce effective AC. The characteristics of AC from nipa’s shell contained approximately 1% of water, ash of 3.8%, and iodine absorption of 708.69 mg/g. Biochar from nipa’s fibre that is activated using KOH has more porosity than that of charcoal without activation (Ding et al., 2022).

AC is widely used for preparation of food and non-food products. The addition of AC may influence the physical, chemical, and sensory properties of fluid products by reducing the total solid dissolved (TDS) and total solid suspended (TSS; Sujiono et al., 2022). Application of AC can also reduce metal contamina - tions such as Fe and Mn (Yao et al., 2020), increase dissolved oxygen (DO), and reduce biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) values. The sensory characteristics could be affected by changing colour and aroma in liquid.

This research utilised waste from nipa fruits as an acti - vated carbon to be applied into herbal drink to improve its characteristics. The selected herbal drinks were Noni and Mangosteen peel herbal drinks. The issue with both herbal drinks is the pungent aroma and aftertaste. Therefore, the application of nipa fruit waste activated carbon (NWAC) could improve the characteristics of Noni and Mangosteen peel herbal drink.

CONTACT Susinggih Wijana singgih_wijana@ub.ac.id Department of Agroindustrial Technology, Faculty of Agricultural Technology, Universitas Brawijaya, Veteran St, Malang, East Java 65145, Indonesia

Reviewing editor: Sik Ok Yong Gujarat Pollution Control Board, India

SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT 2023, VOL. 9, NO. 1, 2173024 https://www.carmenthyssenmalaga.org 2023 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license. You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. No additional restrictions You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

2. Material and methods

The nipa fruit waste was collected from Malang, East Java Indonesia. The waste contains nipa’s shell and fibres. HCl and KOH (Merck’s products) were pur - chased from a local chemical store. The Noni and Mangosteen herbal drinks were purchased from a local small medium enterprise of herbal drinks in Malang, Indonesia.

The equipments used were muffle furnace MF 8/1100 (Boeco), horizontal tunnel dryer, sieve (Dahan DH-300 T), water bath shaker (Gyromax 929 Orbital Water Bath Shaker), and pyrolysis reactor 200–1200 °C. The instrument used was moisture analyser (W&J Moisture Analyzer), UV Vis spectrophotometer (Shimadzu UV-1280), and pH meter (Thermo orion scientific, Stara1115).

The biochar for NWAC was prepared by pyrolysis of nipa fruit waste. First, the nipa fruit waste was dried at 50 °C for 4 hours to reduce the water content, and then pyrolyzed at 500 °C for 2 hours, producing biochar and pyrolysis oil. The biochar was then ground and sieved at 100 mesh. The sieved biochar was then activated by submerging it in HCl 1 M for 24 hours. The biochar was then filtered from the solution and neutralised with KOH 0.1 N until the pH 7. The biochar was then dried at 110 °C for 5 hours, resulting in NWAC as the product.

The NWAC was then applied to Noni and Mangosteen herbal drinks. Six concentrations of NWAC (0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, and 25% w/v) were added into 100 ml of each herbal drink separately. The solution of herbal drinks and NWACs was then heated-up at 50 °C for 4 minutes. The solution was then cen - trifuged at 5000 rpm for 10 minutes to separate the NWAC. The property of the herbal drinks was then analysed.

The total dissolved solids (TDS) test was conducted on the Noni and Mangosteen peel herbal drinks using a refractometer, following ASTM D5907-18 procedure. The total phenol was determined (Siddiqui et al., 2017). The antioxidant activity of Noni and Mangosteen peel herbal drinks after NWAC absorp - tion was tested with DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) method, by measuring the Inhibition Concentration (IC50; Ayanlowo et al., 2020). The organoleptic test was conducted to measure the sensory changes before and after NWAC addition. Three organoleptic characteristics—colour, fragrance, and taste—were used in this study as attributes. Five experts from the herbal beverage sectors served on the panel that conducted the organoleptic test.

3. Results and discussion

3.1 Characteristics of activated carbon from nipa fruit waste

Table 1 compares the features of NWAC to the standard in terms of characteristics including yield, iodine adsorption, water content, ash content, volatile matter, carbon content, and surface area. Overall, NWAC’s qualities were better than the standards. The ash content was less than the standard’s maximum amount. Ash content shows the quantity of residue that fills the pores of activated carbon, including calcium, kalium, natrium, magnesium, and other minerals. The presence of ash reduces the efficacy of the activated carbon (Musyoka et al., 2020).

The volatile matter of NWAC was significantly lower than that of the standard. The majority of volatiles are dangerous to both the environment and human health (Zhang et al., 2022). In the process of AC making, the discharge of volatiles is primarily concentrated during carbonization, which results in the formation of a specific pore structure (Ge et al., 2022). As heating and biochar decomposition rates increased, volatile matter was released more quickly. Additionally, thermal physical parameters like specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity, and thermal diffusion coefficient had an impact on the heat transfer process in the raw material (Deng et al., 2017). The most temperature-sensitive properties in a nitrogenous atmosphere are specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity (Deng et al., 2017).

The carbon content of NWAC was slightly higher than the standard required, suggesting that the carbon content is high enough as a high-quality AC. AC quality

2S. WIJANA ET AL.

is influenced by its complex pore structure, surface functional groups, carbon structure, fugitive state, and reaction characteristics (Li et al., 2022). However, the carbon content proportion is affected by the presence of ash content and other impurities. Research findings have demonstrated that chemical treatment is the most efficient way to get rid of impurities such as inorganic mineral/ash and using chemical multi-stage acid treat - ment can get rid of minerals from coal, coke, and bio - mass to give a stronger effect of purifying residual carbon (Waugh & Bowling, 1984).

A method is used to assess the adsorption potential of AC is iodine number. The amount of iodine adsorbed by 1 g of carbon at the mg level is the iodine number, which measures the porosity of the activated carbon. Iodine number can be used as an approximation for the surface area and micro-porosity of active carbons (Saka, 2012). The iodine adsorption of the NWAC was higher than that of the standard, suggesting that the NWAC has high absorption capabilities and surface area. The surface area of NWAC was 1066 m 2/g. High specific surface areas, typically above 1000 m 2/g, are present in the carbons derived from various precursors, and these surfaces get larger with rising activation temperatures (Gómez et al., 2022).

3.2. Application of the NWAC on noni herbal drink

The parameter used to determine the physical charac - teristics of the Noni herbal drink, which has been adsorbed by NWAC is the total dissolved solids (TDS). The TDS test shows the percentage content of dissolved substances in a solution. Figure 1 shows that the TDS of Noni herbal drink after adsorption had a range of 5.60 to 6.97 °Brix. This value is below the quality requirements set by SNI 3719:2014 for Noni herbal drink, which is 16 °Brix. The low value of total dissolved solids can be influenced by the absorption of the sugar constituent molecules in the Noni herbal drink in the activated carbon adsorption process. This is because the carbon structure in activated carbon has the ability to absorb cations, anions, and molecules in the form of organic and inorganic compounds (Zhao et al., 2022).

Figure 2 shows the effect of addition of NWAC on the total phenol. The average total phenol value ranged from 81.9 to 89.4 mg GAE/g. It is evident that, at a concentration level of 25%, the total phenol value reached its highest point of 89.4 mg GAE/g and at a concentration level of 5%, it reached its lowest point of 81.9 mg GAE/g. The total phenolic value of the fermented Noni herbal beverage was 54.46 mg GAE/ 100 g, though this value varies with storage time. As storage time lengthens, the total phenol value declines (Martayani et al., 2017).

Phenolic compound Noni fruit has various roles, including antiseptic, antibacterial, and antioxidant so that it is widely used for health (Wang et al., 2022). The antioxidant activity of the material increased along with the increase in the total phenol value, so the resulting relationship was directly proportional (Martayani et al., 2017). However, there is a possible difference in the correlation between antioxidant activ - ity and total phenol due to the participation of antiox - idant compounds other than phenolic compounds (Hussain et al., 2022).

Figure 3 shows the antioxidant activity after NWAC adsorption on Noni herbal drinks. The IC50 value and antioxidant activity are inversely proportional (Osei et al., 2022). The average value of IC50 ranged from 4.4 to 7.1 ppm. The lowest IC50 value was found in the Noni herbal drink samples with 0% NWAC addition, while the highest IC50 value was found in the samples with addition of 20% NWAC.

In general, the value of antioxidant activity is identi - fied by using the calculatio