Consumer consciousness on the concept of natural-based ingredients triggers the natural cosmetics market to grow. The
active compounds in natural ingredients offer valuable bioactivities such as antioxidant, photoprotection, anti-aging
and anti-inflammatory actions that useful for skincare, hair care and dental care. This review presents an overview on
natural ingredient, especially plant-derived, used in cosmetic products and the examples of Malaysian plants used for
cosmetic purposes.
This work is aimed to determine the characteristics of activated carbons derived from palm kernel shell (PKS) by microwave-induced zinc chloride activation for dye removal. Activation was performed in a microwave oven at power intensity of 70% for 10 min. The same procedures were repeated for activation using recycled ZnCl2 solution from the first activation. The activated carbons were characterized according to surface area, morphology, functional groups and batch adsorption. The yield for the first activation was 70.7% with surface area of 858m2/g. It was found that the activated carbon prepared using the recycled ZnCl2 still possesses good surface area for methylene blue removal. The adsorption behaviour of the continuous system was well fitted to and could be satisfactorily described by the Yoon and Nelson model.