Resumen de Production of Nanobiochar from Sewage Sludge for the Adsorption of Emerging Contaminants (ECs) from Water and Wastewater
P. Regkouzas, Evan Diamadopoulos
Biochar is the solid product of biomass pyrolysis. Nanobiochar is a new concept that combines biochar technology with nanotechnology in order to create advanced adsorptive and sustainable materials. This can be achieved by using waste materials as feedstock for nanobiochar production. Emerging Contaminants (ECs) contain of a list of organic pollutants that get increasingly detected in surface waters during recent years, causing harmful effects to the recipient organisms. These contaminants cannot be removed conventionally by WWTPs resulting to the search for efficient solutions to resolve this problem. For this purpose, nanobiochar was produced from sewage sludge combined with two nanomaterials, Graphene Oxide (GO) and Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs). Nanobiochars were physicochemically characterized and then applied as adsorbents for the removal of six organic micropollutants listed as ECs from water and wastewater samples. Results showed that CNTs were the best choice of nanomaterial to enhance sewage sludge by effectively removing at least 80.8% of all contaminants from water and wastewater during the first 5 min of contact time, while GO nanobiochars required higher contact times (up to 60 min) in order to remove most pollutants sufficiently, except for 2.4D, which was difficult to remove in this case.
