S. Sulhadi, N. Rosita, S. Susanto, K. Nisa, P.A. Wiguna, P. Marwoto, M.P. Aji
Leaves waste has been used as Lightweight Expanded Carbon Aggregates (LECA) because of its high carbon material. LECA can be used as a water storage media. LECA is low in density so thatits massis very light. Due to its use as a water storage medium, it is important to find out the absorption which occurs in LECA.The LECA's absorption and evaporation rate is affected by the pores. The pores serves to increase water storage ability from LECA. LECA with PEG (pore-forming agent) mass percent variation of 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% is the focus of this study. LECA fabrication was conducted by mixing the carbon resulting from leaves waste pyrolysis and PEG and PVAc. The characterization of LECA was found out by calculating the porosity, the pore size distribution, absorption rate and evaporation rate. The result of the calculation shows that the higher PEG mass percentage, the higher LECA's porosity, the pore size distribution, absorption rate and evaporation rate. However, the porosity, the pore size distributionand absorption rate will be saturated by 25% PEG mass percent addition. © 2016 Author(s).
Departement of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Jl. Raya Sekaran, Gunungpati, 50229, Indonesia
