Abstract
Sustainable methods to produce filter materials are needed to remove a variety of pollutants found in water including organic compounds, heavy metals, and other harmful inorganic and biological contaminants. This study focuses on the removal of Cu(II) from copper aqueous solutions using non-activated char derived from the pyrolysis of mixed municipal discarded materials (MMDM) using a new heat pipe-based pyrolysis reactor. Adsorption experiments were conducted by adding the char to copper solutions of varying concentration (50–250 mg/L) at a constant temperature of 30 °C. The effect of pH on copper adsorption onto the char was also investigated in the range of pH 3 to 6. Copper removal using the char was found to be heavily dependent on pH, adsorption was observed to decrease below a pH of 4.5. However, the initial copper concentration had a little effect on the sorption of copper at high concentration solutions (above 100 mg/L). Overall, the biochar showed an effective copper adsorption capacity (4–5 mg/g) when using copper solutions with a concentration below100 mg/L and pH >4.5. Copper removal using the char tended to follow the pseudo second order kinetic model. Langmuir isothermal model was shown to be the closest fitting isotherm using the linearized Langmuir equation. However, the variety of feedstock used to produce the char led to a variation in results compared to other studies of more specific feedstocks.
Highlights
The results section first presents the SEM-EDAX analysis followed by the Fourier transmission infra-red (FTIR) to show the varying characteristics between chars produced from different feedstocks, as well as their ability to adsorb copper
This article focused on the use of mixed municipal discarded materials (MMDM) char as an adsorbent for the developing world, towards its use in a decentralised drinking water application for the removal of copper ions from water
The results show that char produced from mixed feedstocks can be used successfully to remove copper from aqueous solutions
Summary
Typical practices to produce AC include an activation process at high temperature involving chemical or steam treatment and increasing the temperature past 600 °C after pyrolysis. These processes enhance the properties of a pyrolyzed substance. Some heavy metals such as copper (Cu), chromium (Cr), iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg), and manganese (Mn), are essential micronutrients as they play important biochemical and physiological roles in biological systems at ambient conditions (Singh et al, 2011). Anthropogenic activities have polluted the environment with excess amounts of heavy metals. Metals such as copper are introduced by industrial effluents, mining processes and water pipework (Lone et al, 2008). Adsorption methods have received attention in recent years, with AC adsorbents being produced from fossil fuel materials such as coke, often involving steam and/or metal hydroxide activation (Wu et al, 2018)
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