Highly Porous and Nutrients-Rich Biochar Derived from Dairy Cattle Manure and Its Potential for Removal of Cationic Compound from Water

Wen-Tien Tsai, Chien-Hung Hsu and Yu-Quan Lin
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Wen-Tien Tsai: Graduate Institute of Bioresources, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung 912, Taiwan
Chien-Hung Hsu: Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung 912, Taiwan
Yu-Quan Lin: Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung 912, Taiwan

Agriculture, 2019, vol. 9, issue 6, 1-9

Abstract: The use of biochar in the horticulture and crop fields is a recent method to improve soil fertility due to its porous features and rich nutrients. In the present study, dairy manure (DM) was used as a biomass precursor in the preparation of highly porous biochar (DM-BC) produced at specific conditions. Based on N 2 adsorption-desorption isotherms and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations, the resulting biochar featured its microporous/mesoporous textures with a BET surface area of about 300 m 2 /g and total pore volume of 0.185 cm 3 /g, which could be a low-cost biosorbent for the effective removal of methylene blue (MB) from the aqueous solution. As observed by the energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), the primary inorganic nutrients on the surface of DM-BC included calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), potassium (K), phosphorus (P), silicon (Si), sulfur (S), sodium (Na) and aluminum (Al). Furthermore, the resulting biochar was investigated in duplicate for its biosorption performance of cationic compound (i.e., methylene blue, MB) from the aqueous solution with various initial MB concentrations and DM-BC dosages at 25 °C. The findings showed that the biosorption kinetic parameters fitted by the pseudo-second order rate model with high correlations were consistent with its porous features. These experimental results suggested that the porous DM-based biochar could be reused as a biosorbent, biofertilizer, or soil amendments due to the high porosity and the abundance in nutrient minerals.

Keywords: manure pyrolysis; biosorbent; pore property; nutrient mineral; biosorption kinetic model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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