Global threats including climate change, land degradation, environmental contamination, and water shortages lead to economic, social and environmental damage. These need to be addressed to overcome the major disaster occurring now and in near future. Sustainable Biochar (BC) from biomass and wastes can be an environmentally-friendly option for carbon sequestration, soil fertility improvement, pollution remediation and agricultural by-product/waste recycling. A variety of biochars were developed by slow pyrolysis of agricultural wastes/byproducts including pine needle, water hyacinth, sugarcane bagasse, rice husks, wheat husks, corn cobs, corn stover, and banana peels. Modified biochars with enhanced removal capacities including biochar-iron nanocomposites, biochar-iron-aluminum composites and magnetic biochars were also prepared. These biochars (unmodified and modified) were characterized for their morphological, structural and physico-chemical characteristics using BET surface area, XRD, XRF, SEM, SEM-EDX, TEM, FTIR, XPS, pHpzc, CHNS, proximate and ultimate analysis. The effect of pyrolysis temperature and feedstock types on biochars properties was also evaluated. These biochars were successfully applied for the remediation of inorganic (chromium, cadmium, lead, arsenic, fluoride) and organic (ibuprofen and salicylic acid, pesticides, phenols etc.) contaminants from water. Both, batch as well as column studies were carried out. The effect of pH, initial concentration, adsorbent dose, temperature, and particle size on the sorption capacity was evaluated. Biochars were also used to treat real water samples. Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, Toth, and Sips models were used to fit the sorption equilibrium data. Pseudo-first-order and Pseudo-second-order rate equations were used to fit the kinetic data. Kinetic parameters were also used to determine the thermodynamic parameters. These contaminants were recovered and biochars were successfully regenerated and reused through several cycles.

Development of sustainable biochars for the aqueous remediation of organic and inorganic contaminants

255th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.