You can do the proximal analyses (i.e. Ash, volatile matter, moisture, Fixed carbon) using TGA.

Thanks for answer Dr Carlos. Currently I use ash analyses. But I need to compared and shared the TGA/DTGA results with other researchers. Refer the attachment. If can compare with carbon coal mineral raw materials.

The results obtained from TGA will give thermal behaviour of sample. you can also compare TGA results of activated carbon with coal or raw coconut shell or other biomass materials.

Thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) measures changes in physical and chemical properties of matter as a function of increasing temperature (@ constant heating rate), or as a function of time (with constant temp and/or constant mass loss). This therogram data owes information about physical phenomena, viz second-order phase transitions (vaporization, sublimation, absorption, adsorption, and desorption) and ideas of certain chemical phenomena like chemisorptions, desolvation (specially dehydration) decomposition and solid-gas reactions

This technique determines selected characteristics of matter that exhibit either mass loss or gain due to decomposition, oxidation, or loss of volatiles (as moisture/water). TGA are used to characterize decomposition patterns, degradation pattern/mechanism studies along with kinetics, determination of organic content in a sample, determination of inorganics/ ash content, useful for corroborating predicted material structures or simply used as a chemical analysis. I

Thus TGA especially useful to study of polymeric materials, thermoplastics, thermosets, elastomers, Carbon, Bio-composites, plastic films, fibers, coatings and paints.

TGA evaluates thermal stability of a matter in a desired temp. range, if thermally stablity is more then materials shows no observed mass change. Negligible mass loss corresponds to little or no slope in TGA trace.

TGA data also gives the upper usage limit temperature of a material, beyond which material begin to degrade/unstable.

Thermogravimetric analysis curve must not be confused with Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA). Although both deals with temperature stability examination of materials. The differential form of the TGA is called as DTA

TGA gives primary thermograms (Sigmoid curves) from which one can find the kinetic parameters (order of the reaction, frequency factor and activation energy)which can be used for characterization purpose of coal and its derivatives. DTGA gives the derivative of primary thermogram from which one can easily identify the initial degradation, final degradation and inflection points (where the degradation rate is maximum) but often these are used for comparison purpose.

Well. I used it for obtaining some information about the thermal history of weight losses, which then could lead me to some conversion to other substances, the kinetics of their formation etc. For instance, you can get the carbon ash content and define volatile substances.

Good luck dear friend

From TG and DTG curves you can evaluate relative hidrophobicity of activated carbons provided that heating conditions (heating rate and atmosphere) and sample size remain constants. Usually two stages of weight loss are observed. The low temperature one, close or below to 100 C, associated to removal of weakly adsorbed hygroscopic water, can be used to estimate a hydrophobic index. Thus, the higher the rate of water desorption (fraction of water loss at a given T) and the lower the activation energy of the desorption process the higher the hydrophobicity. The second weight loss stage usually in the range of 350-400 C is related to fixed carbon degradation. Finally, the nonvolatile fraction of sample gives the ash content. Have a look at the following references for quantitative analysis of kinetic parameters from TG curve:

(1) doi:10.1038/201068a0

(2) G. O. Piloyan and O.S. Novikova, Russian J. Inorg. Chem., 12(1966)313

ATG+MS give information on the surface functionalities of the activated carbon. A simple deconvolution method of CO and CO2 evolved at different temperatures allows analyzing the TPD spectra and the quantitative determination of the amount of each functional group on the surface. Figueiredo et al Carbon 37 (9) 1999, 1379–1389

You can also look in My RG profile the paper: 'Hydrogen storage in activated carbons produced from coals of different ranks: Effect of oxygen content '