Study on the Enhanced Remediation of Petroleum-Contaminated Soil by Biochar/g-C 3 N 4 Composites

Hongyang Lin, Yang Yang, Zhenxiao Shang, Qiuhong Li, Xiaoyin Niu, Yanfei Ma and Aiju Liu
Additional contact information
Hongyang Lin: School of Agricultural Engineering and Food Science, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, China
Yang Yang: School of Agricultural Engineering and Food Science, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, China
Zhenxiao Shang: School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, China
Qiuhong Li: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, China
Xiaoyin Niu: School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, China
Yanfei Ma: School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, China
Aiju Liu: School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 14, 1-14

Abstract: This work developed an environmentally-friendly soil remediation method based on BC and g-C 3 N 4 , and demonstrated the technical feasibility of remediating petroleum-contaminated soil with biochar/graphite carbon nitride (BC/g-C 3 N 4 ). The synthesis of BC/g-C 3 N 4 composites was used for the removal of TPH in soil via adsorption and photocatalysis. BC, g-C 3 N 4 , and BC/g-C 3 N 4 have been characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area analyzer (BET), FT-IR, and X-ray diffraction (XRD). BC/g-C 3 N 4 facilitates the degradation due to reducing recombination and better electron-hole pair separation. BC, g-C 3 N 4 , and BC/g-C 3 N 4 were tested for their adsorption and photocatalytic degradation capacities. Excellent and promising results are brought out by an apparent synergism between adsorption and photocatalysis. The optimum doping ratio of 1:3 between BC and g-C 3 N 4 was determined by single-factor experiments. The removal rate of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) by BC/g-C 3 N 4 reached 54.5% by adding BC/g-C 3 N 4 at a dosing rate of 0.08 g/g in a neutral soil with 10% moisture content, which was 2.12 and 1.95 times of BC and g-C 3 N 4 , respectively. The removal process of TPH by BC/g-C 3 N 4 conformed to the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. In addition, the removal rates of different petroleum components in soil were analyzed in terms of gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and the removal rates of nC 13 -nC 35 were above 90% with the contaminated soil treated by BC/g-C 3 N 4 . The radical scavenger experiments indicated that superoxide radical played the major role in the photocatalytic degradation of TPH. This work definitely demonstrates that the BC/g-C 3 N 4 composites have great potential for application in the remediation of organic pollutant contaminated soil.

Keywords: biochar; adsorption; photocatalysis; synergy; TPH; soil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8290/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8290/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:14:p:8290-:d:857489

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().