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Arsenic sorption by red mud-modified biochar produced from rice straw

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Abstract

Red mud-modified biochar (RM-BC) has been produced to be utilized as a novel adsorbent to remove As because it can effectively combine the beneficial features of red mud (rich metal oxide composition and porous structure) and biochar (large surface area and porous structure properties). SEM-EDS and XRD analyses demonstrated that red mud had loaded successfully on the surface of biochar. With the increasing of pH in solution, arsenate (As(V)) adsorption on RM-BC decreased while arsenite (As(III)) increased. Arsenate adsorption kinetics process on RM-BC fitted the pseudo-second-order model, while that of As(III) favored the Elovich model. All sorption isotherms produced superior fits with the Langmuir model. RM-BC exhibited improved As removal capabilities, with a maximum adsorption capacity (Qmax) for As(V) of 5923 μg g−1, approximately ten times greater than that of the untreated BC (552.0 μg g−1). Furthermore, it has been indicated that the adsorption of As(V) on RM-BC may be strongly associated with iron oxides (hematite and magnetite) and aluminum oxides (gibbsite) by X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES), which was possibly because of surface complexation and electrostatic interactions. RM-BC may be used as a valuable adsorbent for removing As in the environment due to the waste materials being relatively abundant.

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Acknowledgments

Financial supports from China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Project No.2016M590755) and Natural Science Foundation of Hunan, China (Project No. 2015JJ3142) and Teacher’s Research Foundation of Central South University (2015JSJJ7) are gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank beamline BL14W1 (Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility) for providing the beam time.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Metallurgy and Environment, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, People’s Republic of China

    Chuan Wu, Liu Huang, Sheng-Guo Xue & Meng-qian Cui

  2. Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF), Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201204, People’s Republic of China

    Yu-Ying Huang

  3. Crop and Environment Sciences Department, Harper Adams University, Newport, Shropshire, TF10 8NB, UK

    William Hartley

  4. Consortium on Health, Environment, Education and Research (CHEER), The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People’s Republic of China

    Ming-Hung Wong

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  1. Chuan Wu
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  2. Liu Huang
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  3. Sheng-Guo Xue
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  4. Yu-Ying Huang
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  5. William Hartley
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  6. Meng-qian Cui
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Correspondence to Sheng-Guo Xue.

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Responsible editor: Guilherme L. Dotto

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Wu, C., Huang, L., Xue, SG. et al. Arsenic sorption by red mud-modified biochar produced from rice straw. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 18168–18178 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9466-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9466-7

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