Activated Carbons from Miscanthus Straw for Cleaning Water Bodies in Kazakhstan

Abstract

Pollution of water bodies by heavy metals is an acute problem in Kazakhstan. Hence, search for and implementation of sustainable environmental technologies for water purification is of high priority. Activated carbon appears as an appropriate material as reflected in a number of previous studies. Due to a growing interest in low-cost active coals from renewable, rapidly recovering raw materials, especially for the purification of drinking water and wastewater, special attention has been in recent years been paid to the preparation activated carbons from some types of agricultural by-products. Along these lines a technology for producing new carbon-containing sorbents, i.e., activated carbon from Miscanthus straw (Мiscanthus × giganteus) is reported. The method of preparation, type of reactor, experimental conditions and the influence of the selected initial material on the properties of the resulting activated carbons are discussed. The activation of the primarily carbonized material in super-heated steam creates an activated coal material with a specific surface area of 541.9 m2/g and a specific pore volume of 0.232 cm3/g. The possible application for purification of water bodies from selected heavy metals was studied by estimation of the sorption capacity of the generated active coal material towards selected metal ions. The adsorption capacity for copper, zinc and lead ions is 90, 100, 500 mg/L, which allows to consider obtained by this method AC as an attractive alternative to traditional coal sorbents.