New Evidence for High Sorption Capacity of Hydrochar for Hydrophobic Organic Pollutants

作者：Han, Lanfang; Ro, Kyoung S.; Sun, Ke^*; Sun, Haoran; Wang, Ziying; Libra, Judy A.; Xing, Baoshan

来源：Environmental Science & Technology, 2016, 50(24): 13274-13282.

DOI：10.1021/acs.est.6b02401

• POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC-HYDROCARBONS
• HYDROTHERMAL CARBONIZATION
• CHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS
• PYROLYSIS TEMPERATURE
• PHENANTHRENE SORPTION
• STRUCTURAL-PROPERTIES
• MOLECULAR-STRUCTURE
• DIBUTYL PHTHALATE
• MATTER FRACTIONS
• BLACK CARBON

This study investigated the sorption potential of hydrochars, produced from hydrothermally carbonizing livestock wastes, toward organic pollutants (OPs) with a wide range of hydrophobicity, and compared their sorption capacity with that of pyrochars obtained from conventional dry pyrolysis from the same feedstock. Results of SEM, Raman, and C-13 NMR demonstrated that organic carbon (OC) of hydrochars mainly consisted of amorphous alkyl and aryl C. Hydrochars exhibited consistently higher log K-oc. of both nonpolar and polar OPs than pyrochars. This, combined with the significantly less energy required for the hydrothermal process, suggests that hydrothermal conversion of surplus livestock waste into value-added sorbents could be an alternative manure management strategy. Moreover, the hydrochars log K-oc values were practically unchanged after the removal of amorphous aromatics, implying that amorphous aromatic C played a comparable role in the high sorption capacity of hydrochars compared to amorphous alkyl C. It was thus concluded that the dominant amorphous C associated with both alkyl and aryl moieties within hydrochars explained their high sorption capacity for OPs. This research not only indicates that animal-manure-derived hydrochars are promising sorbents for environmental applications but casts new light on mechanisms underlying the high sorption capacity of hydrochars for both nonpolar and polar OPs.

• 出版日期2016-12-20
• 单位北京师范大学