EFFICIENCY OF CAPACITOR IN CCTO CERAMICS WITH ACTIVATED CARBON DERIVED FROM TAMARIND FRUIT SHELLS

Abstract

Sweet tamarind is one of the important economic corps which tamarind fruit shells go to waste after being removed. In this study, tamarind fruit shells activated using KOH and rinsed with HCl under ambient pressure were used to synthesize activated carbon with high carbon porosity. After that, CaCu₃Ti₄O₁₂ (CCTO) with high dielectric constant was synthesized using simplified method and added activated carbon in the proportion of 10, 15, 25 and 50 mol%, respectively. The results from XRD analysis of carbon phases and SEM analysis of particle profile and porosity showed that at 50 mol% phase of carbon increases and high porosity was found. Additionally, the activated carbon derived from tamarind fruit shells with 50 mol% was studied for its efficiency of capacitance, dielectric constant and dielectric loss using Impedance analyzer. It was found that CCTO with activated carbon derived from tamarind fruit shells at 50 mol% had the highest electrical capacitance and dielectric constant at 50 Hz accounting for 63-time higher than that of CCTO without activated carbon derived from tamarind fruit shells. The results also suggested that the capacitance, dielectric constant and dielectric loss decreased when the frequency was higher. This means that activated carbon derived from tamarind fruit shells increases the capacitance of CCTO ceramics and makes it suitable for the invention of electrical capacitors.