Regeneration of biochars (pristine and modified/engineered) and economic analysis of their use in the removal of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from water/wastewater

Abstract

Currently, there is an increasing interest in developing efficient and cost-effective treatment technologies to remediate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water. Biochars (pristine and modified/engineered) can be a good candidate among porous pyrogenic carbonaceous materials for the sorptive removal of PFAS from water/wastewater. There is a need to focus on developing efficient, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective techniques for desorbing PFAS from spent biochars (pristine and modified/engineered) to enable potential reuse or suitable disposal of these adsorbents, facilitating their future full-scale application in the water sector. This review article briefly compiles the state-of-the-art knowledge on the: (i) application of pristine and modified/engineered biochars for the sorptive removal of PFAS from aqueous samples; (ii) regeneration/reuse techniques for the spent biochars; and (iii) economic analysis of their use in PFAS removal from water/wastewater. Further investigations on (i) better modifying/engineering biochars to remove specially short-chain PFAS species in real environmental water samples due to challenging nature of their removal using conventional treatment technologies; (ii) feasible low-energy, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective strategies for regeneration/reuse of the spent biochars (pristine and modified/engineered) and management of their end-of-life; and (iii) large-scale and continuous column sorption operation for the real water/wastewater samples are still desirable to apply biochars for PFAS removal at full-scale in the future.