Environmental Geochemistry and Health

, Volume 38, Issue 2, pp 511–521 | Cite as

Chemically modified biochar produced from conocarpus waste increases NO3 removal from aqueous solutions

  • Adel R. A. Usman
  • Mahtab Ahmad
  • Mohamed El-Mahrouky
  • Abdulrasoul Al-Omran
  • Yong Sik Ok
  • Abdelazeem Sh. Sallam
  • Ahmed H. El-Naggar
  • Mohammad I. Al-Wabel
Original Paper
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

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.

Keywords

Engineered biochar Kinetics Sorption capacity Green waste Chemical modification 

Notes

Acknowledgments

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.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  • Adel R. A. Usman
    • 1
    • 2
  • Mahtab Ahmad
    • 1
  • Mohamed El-Mahrouky
    • 1
  • Abdulrasoul Al-Omran
    • 1
  • Yong Sik Ok
    • 3
  • Abdelazeem Sh. Sallam
    • 1
  • Ahmed H. El-Naggar
    • 1
    • 4
  • Mohammad I. Al-Wabel
    • 1
  1. 1.Soil Sciences Department, College of Food and Agriculture SciencesKing Saud UniversityRiyadhSaudi Arabia
  2. 2.Department of Soils and Water, Faculty of AgricultureAssiut UniversityAssiutEgypt
  3. 3.Korea Biochar Research CenterKangwon National UniversityChuncheonKorea
  4. 4.Department of Soil Science, Faculty of AgricultureAin Shams UniversityCairoEgypt

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