Cost, purity, availability, the processing steps, and intended application of the product are the valuable factors for considering the precursor of ACs (Al Bahri et al. 2012). A variety of carbonaceous materials including agricultural wastes or indus­trial wastes can be used to prepare ACs with high surface area and pore volumes. Although the materials used as a precursor and the preparation method determines the textural properties of ACs, however a variety of natural and synthetic materials have been used as precursors (Yagmur et al. 2008). Almost half of the raw materials used are lignocellulosic ones (Duran-Valle et al. 2005; Sudaryanto et al. 2006). Agricultural wastes due to their abundance are a rich source for activated catalyst production; it also supports to elucidate environmental problems and also reduces the expenses of activated carbon preparation.

Lignocellulosic agricultural wastes considered as a perfect precursor for the pro­duction of activated carbon (Kirubakaran et al. 1991; Al-Khalid 1995; Toles et al. 1998; Shawabkeh et al. 2002; Dastgheib and Rockstraw 2001). The most widely used carbonaceous materials for the industrial production of activated carbons are coal, wood, and coconut shell (Vernersson et al. 2002; Yang and Lua 2006) although these precursors are costly and are often imported in the country from developed ones thus there is need to utilize low-cost carbonaceous materials as feedstocks. As the demand for vegetable oils for food and oleo chemicals increased recently, the contribution of discarded by product of oils and wastes will have to play a crucial rule. Nowadays both conventional (from agriculture and wood industry) and non­conventional (from municipal and industrial activities) wastes employed to prepare activated catalyst (Diasa et al. 2007). The use of OCW as starting material for catalyst production can partly address issues concerning waste disposal and it can simultane­ously help to generate revenue from a potential waste (Konwar et al. 2013).