TY - JOUR
T1 - Chemically modified biochar produced from conocarpus waste increases NO3 removal from aqueous solutions
AU - Usman, Adel R.A.
AU - Ahmad, Mahtab
AU - El-Mahrouky, Mohamed
AU - Al-Omran, Abdulrasoul
AU - Ok, Yong Sik
AU - Sallam, Abdelazeem Sh
AU - El-Naggar, Ahmed H.
AU - Al-Wabel, Mohammad I.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud University, for funding this work through the international research group Project IRG-14-14.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
PY - 2016/4/1
Y1 - 2016/4/1
N2 - Biochar has emerged as a universal sorbent for the removal of contaminants from water and soil. However, its efficiency is lower than that of commercially available sorbents. Engineering biochar by chemical modification may improve its sorption efficiency. In this study, conocarpus green waste was chemically modified with magnesium and iron oxides and then subjected to thermal pyrolysis to produce biochar. These chemically modified biochars were tested for NO3 removal efficiency from aqueous solutions in batch sorption isothermal and kinetic experiments. The results revealed that MgO-biochar outperformed other biochars with a maximum NO3 sorption capacity of 45.36 mmol kg−1 predicted by the Langmuir sorption model. The kinetics data were well described by the Type 1 pseudo-second-order model, indicating chemisorption as the dominating mechanism of NO3 sorption onto biochars. Greater efficiency of MgO-biochar was related to its high specific surface area (391.8 m2 g−1) and formation of strong ionic complexes with NO3. At an initial pH of 2, more than 89 % NO3 removal efficiency was observed for all of the biochars. We conclude that chemical modification can alter the surface chemistry of biochar, thereby leading to enhanced sorption capacity compared with simple biochar.
AB - Biochar has emerged as a universal sorbent for the removal of contaminants from water and soil. However, its efficiency is lower than that of commercially available sorbents. Engineering biochar by chemical modification may improve its sorption efficiency. In this study, conocarpus green waste was chemically modified with magnesium and iron oxides and then subjected to thermal pyrolysis to produce biochar. These chemically modified biochars were tested for NO3 removal efficiency from aqueous solutions in batch sorption isothermal and kinetic experiments. The results revealed that MgO-biochar outperformed other biochars with a maximum NO3 sorption capacity of 45.36 mmol kg−1 predicted by the Langmuir sorption model. The kinetics data were well described by the Type 1 pseudo-second-order model, indicating chemisorption as the dominating mechanism of NO3 sorption onto biochars. Greater efficiency of MgO-biochar was related to its high specific surface area (391.8 m2 g−1) and formation of strong ionic complexes with NO3. At an initial pH of 2, more than 89 % NO3 removal efficiency was observed for all of the biochars. We conclude that chemical modification can alter the surface chemistry of biochar, thereby leading to enhanced sorption capacity compared with simple biochar.
KW - Chemical modification
KW - Engineered biochar
KW - Green waste
KW - Kinetics
KW - Sorption capacity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84961136718&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10653-015-9736-6
DO - 10.1007/s10653-015-9736-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 26100325
AN - SCOPUS:84961136718
VL - 38
SP - 511
EP - 521
JO - Environmental Geochemistry and Health
JF - Environmental Geochemistry and Health
SN - 0269-4042
IS - 2
ER -