Removal of organic micropollutants from water by adsorption on thermo-plasma expanded graphite encapsulated into calcium alginate

AbstractNowadays, public concern is focused on the degradation of water quality. For this reason, the development of innovative technologies for water treatment in view of (micro)pollutant removal is important. Indeed, organic (micro)pollutants, such as pharmaceuticals, herbicides, pesticides and plasticizers at concentration levels of μg L−1 or even ng L−1 are hardly removed during conventional wastewater treatment. In view of this, thermo-plasma expanded graphite, a light-weight innovative material in the form of a powder, was encapsulated into calcium alginate to obtain a granular form useful as filtration and adsorption material for removal of different pollutants. The produced material was used to remove atrazine, bisphenol-A, 17- α-ethinylestradiol and carbamazepine (at concentration levels of 125, 250 and 500 µg L−1) by top-down filtration. The effect of flow rate, bed depth and adsorbent composition was evaluated based on breakthrough curves. The experimental data was analysed with the Adams-Bohart model in view of scale-up. Under optimal conditions, removal and adsorption capacity of respectively about 21%, 21%, 38%,42%, 43  µg g−1, 44  µg g−1, 37  µg g−1 and 87  µg g−1 were obtained for atrazine, bisphenol, 17- α ethinylestradiol and carbamazepine when using 0.12 g of thermo-plasma expanded graphite to treat 200 mL at 500 µg L−1 (for each compound) of solution obtaining at contact time of 20  min. The granular form of TPEG obtai...
Source: Journal of Environmental Health Science and Engineering - Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research