The use of biochar from waste wooden biomass for removal of emerging pollutants

Abstract

Biochar can be produced usig variety of waste biomass to achieve goals of zero waste management and circular economy. It has been used as adsorbent in the past for water and wastewater treatment. Recetly, the application of natural porous materials for removal of emerging pollutants gained a lot of attention. One of the important groups of emerging pollutants are also pharmaceuticals. Owing to recent concerns about their effects on naturally occuring bacterial communities resulting in developement of antibiotic resistance different removal methods are studied and applied. The aim of presented research is to use biochar prodeced from waste biomas for removal of veterinary antibiotic tiamulin from model wastewater. Produced biochar was activated using different chemical methods (KOH or K2CO3 addition under varios conditions). It was chracterised using BET method for determination of pore size and volume as well as SEM microscopy. Results indicated importance of biochar activation to achieve applicable adsorption characteristics. In 180 minutes of batch experiment 42% of tiamulin was removed. Kinetic parameters were also determined by Lagergren model while for determination of adsorption isotherm Freundlich model fitted obtained data. It was concluded, that adsorption characteristics of produced and activated biochar are comparable to those of commercially available activated carbon and thus its feasibility for removal of tiamulin from model wastewater was confirmed.