Coal Discards and Sewage Sludge Derived-Hydrochar for HIV Antiretroviral Pollutant Removal from Wastewater and Spent Adsorption Residue Evaluation for Sustainable Carbon Management

Gentil Mwengula Kahilu, Samson Bada and Jean Mulopo ()
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Gentil Mwengula Kahilu: DSI-NRF SARChI Clean Coal Technology Research Group, School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits 2050, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa
Samson Bada: DSI-NRF SARChI Clean Coal Technology Research Group, School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits 2050, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa
Jean Mulopo: Sustainable Energy and Environment Research Group, School of Chemical Engineering, University of Witwatersrand, Wits 2050, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 22, 1-30

Abstract: The effects of various parameter interactions on the textural structure of hydrochars produced via hydrothermal (HTC) and co-hydrothermal (Co-HTC) treatments of coal discards and sewage sludge (wastes), as well as the subsequent use of the hydrochars (HCs) synthesized for HIV drug (nevirapine and lamivudine) removal from wastewater, were investigated in this study. The HTC and Co-HTC process improved the carbon content of the raw material by 13.47%, 7.08%, and 30.65% for hydrochar coal tailing (HCT), hydrochar coal slurry (HCS), and hydrochar from coal–sewage blend (HCB), respectively. The Co-HTC-derived HCB had a high S BET of 20.35 m 2 /g and pore volume of 0.38 cm 3 /g, leading to significant adsorptive reductions of nevirapine (NEV) and lamivudine (LAM) (97.19% and 93.32%, respectively). HCT and HCS displayed high NEV and LAM adsorption capacities (50 mg g −1 , 42 mg g −1 and 52 mg g −1 , 41 mg g −1 ), respectively, despite being less effective than HCB (53.8 mg g −1 , 42.8 mg g −1 ). In addition, the use of spent adsorption residues for energy storage applications was investigated further. The findings showed that spent adsorption residues are an effective carbonaceous material precursor to produce electrical double-layer capacitors (EDLCs).

Keywords: hydrothermal carbonization; coal slurry; coal tailing; sewage sludge; nevirapine; lamivudine; HIV drug; wastewater; adsorption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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