Valorisation of oliviculture residues to produce biochars for the removal of naproxen from water Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support through national funds FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020, UIDP/00690/2020 and EXPL2021CIMO_05-REMPHARM) and SusTEC (LA/P/0007/2021). J.L. Diaz De Tuesta acknowledges the financial support of “Comunidad de Madrid” (Spain) for the individual research grant 2020-T2/AMB-19836
  • The presence of pharmaceutical drugs, their metabolites and degradation products in the environment requires significant research and monitoring studies to assess the potential risks to human health and to ecosystems. Due to the extremely low concentrations of these chemicals in the environment in the trace levels of μg/L or even ng/L the removal processes must be optimized in order to make them easier, quicker, less expensive, and more environmentally friendly than traditional techniques [1]. Adsorption is a treatment process based on accumulation of the adsorbate (pollutant) on the adsorbent surface that has been successfully used for the optimization of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Carbon based materials (CBMs), such as activated carbons, chars, carbon black, carbidederive and nanostructured carbons have shown incredible efficiency as adsorbents. Of considerable interest is the possibility of using biomass wastes to prepare an effective adsorbent and its use in the removal of pharmaceuticals [2]. This work presents the main experimental results for the removal of naproxen from water by adsorption using activated carbon obtained from olive stones [3,4]. Four types of activated carbon materials were prepared from olive stones, the olive pits were powdered to an average diameter of 0.25 mm (type 1), then chemically activated with a strong acid (type 2) and then carbonized at 500ᵒC (type 3) or pyrolyzed at 800ᵒC (type 4). The batch method was applied to experimentally measure the equilibrium adsorption isotherms. The most significant adsorption parameters were optimized, such as the solution pH, mass of the adsorbent used, adsorption contact time and adsorption temperature. This work aims to study the removal of naproxen from aqueous solutions using activated carbon obtained from olive stones

publication date

  • January 1, 2022