Efficient removal of volatile organic compound by ball-milled biochars from different preparing conditions

Zhicheng Zhuang; Lan Wang; Jingchun Tang

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124676

Efficient removal of volatile organic compound by ball-milled biochars from different preparing conditions

J Hazard Mater. 2021 Mar 15:406:124676. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124676. Epub 2020 Nov 26.

Authors

Zhicheng Zhuang¹, Lan Wang², Jingchun Tang³

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria (Ministry of Education), Tianjin Engineering Center of Environmental Diagnosis and Contamination Remediation, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China.
² Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria (Ministry of Education), Tianjin Engineering Center of Environmental Diagnosis and Contamination Remediation, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China. Electronic address: envwangl@nankai.edu.cn.
³ Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria (Ministry of Education), Tianjin Engineering Center of Environmental Diagnosis and Contamination Remediation, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China. Electronic address: tangjch@nankai.edu.cn.

PMID: 33310330
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124676

Abstract

Adsorption is an important technology to deal with volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and biochar has attracted much attention as a new type of adsorbent for VOCs. In this study, rice husk, corn stover and pine wood sawdust biochars from different pyrolysis temperatures (300 °C, 500 °C and 700 °C) were synthesized and treated by ball milling. The pristine and ball-milled biochars were used as adsorbents for acetone and toluene removal. Results showed that wood biochar had higher adsorption capacity for VOCs. After ball milling, the BET specific surface area and the oxygen functional group content of biochars increased. With these changes, all the ball-milled biochars showed higher adsorption rate than the pristine biochars. The ball-milled biochars under pyrolysis temperature of 300 °C showed the best adsorption performance for acetone (304 mg g^-1), which was 1.7-fold greater than that of pristine biochar. Increasing the surface area by ball milling is conducive to the diffusion of hydrophobic VOCs molecules such as toluene to the adsorption sites in the biochar. However, for hydrophilic VOCs such as acetone, higher oxygen functional groups were the main reason for the enhanced adsorption by ball milling. Therefore, ball-milled biochar can be used as a potential adsorbent material in VOCs treatment.

Keywords: Adsorption; Ball milling; Biochar; VOCs removal.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adsorption
Charcoal
Pyrolysis
Volatile Organic Compounds*

Substances

Volatile Organic Compounds
biochar
Charcoal