Abstract
The purpose of this study was to compare the removal efficiencies of manganese (Mn) and iron (Fe) using pristine banana peel biochar (BPB) and phosphoric acid pre-treated biochars (PBPB) derived from banana peels. The removal efficiencies of Mn and Fe were investigated under different adsorbent dosages (0.4–2 g L−1), temperatures (15–45 °C), and ionic strengths (0–0.1 M), and were directly correlated to the differences in physicochemical properties of BPB and PBPB, to identify the removal mechanisms of heavy metals by adsorption processes. The removal of Mn by PBPB obeyed the Freundlich isotherm model while the removal of Mn and Fe by BPB followed the Langmuir isotherm model. However, the removal of Fe by PBPB followed both Freundlich and Langmuir isotherm models. The removal efficiencies of Mn and Fe by BPB and PBPB increased with increasing temperatures and decreased with increasing ionic strengths. PBPB more effectively removed Mn and Fe compared to BPB due to its higher content of oxygen-containing functional groups (O/C ratio of PBPB = 0.45; O/C ratio of BPB = 0.01), higher surface area (PBPB = 27.41 m2 g−1; BPB = 11.32 m2 g−1), and slightly greater pore volume (PBPB = 0.03 cm3 g−1; BPB = 0.027 cm3 g−1). These observations clearly show that phosphoric acid pre-treatment can improve the physicochemical properties of biochar prepared from banana peels, which is closely related to the removal of heavy metals by adsorption processes.
Highlights
Water pollution by heavy metals released from various industrial activities such as metal plating and cleaning, mining, refineries, coatings, batteries, and automobile radiators, is an emerging environmental issue in water treatment engineering since heavy metals may pose adverse effects on human health and aquatic ecosystems due to their high toxicity, carcinogenicity, and non-biodegradability [1,2]
The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of phosphate pre-treatment on the adsorption of heavy metals (i.e., Mn and Fe) using biochars prepared from banana peels
Biochars produced from pristine and phosphoric acid pre-treated banana peel wastes are defined as banana peel biochar (BPB) and pre-treated banana peel biochar (PBPB), respectively
Summary
Water pollution by heavy metals released from various industrial activities such as metal plating and cleaning, mining, refineries, coatings, batteries, and automobile radiators, is an emerging environmental issue in water treatment engineering since heavy metals may pose adverse effects on human health and aquatic ecosystems due to their high toxicity, carcinogenicity, and non-biodegradability [1,2]. The World Health Organization (WHO) have set a safe drinking water concentration of 0.05 and 0.3 mg L−1 for Mn and Fe, respectively [5]. Based on these reasons, there is great need to develop an economic and efficient method for removing heavy metals from wastewater
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