Enhancing the adsorption capability of areca leaf biochar for methylene blue by K2FeO4-catalyzed oxidative pyrolysis at low temperature

Zhibing Yin; Nian Liu; Siyao Bian; Jihui Li; Shuying Xu; Yucang Zhang

doi:10.1039/c9ra06592j

Enhancing the adsorption capability of areca leaf biochar for methylene blue by K₂FeO₄-catalyzed oxidative pyrolysis at low temperature

RSC Adv. 2019 Dec 20;9(72):42343-42350. doi: 10.1039/c9ra06592j. eCollection 2019 Dec 18.

Authors

Zhibing Yin^{1

2}, Nian Liu^{1

2}, Siyao Bian^{1

2}, Jihui Li^{1

2}, Shuying Xu^{1

2}, Yucang Zhang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Advanced Materials in Tropical Island Resources, College of Materials and Chemical Engineering, Hainan University Haikou 570228 China lijihui@hainanu.edu.cn xushuying1980@hainanu.edu.cn.
² Hainan Provincial Key Lab of Fine Chem, College of Materials and Chemical Engineering, Hainan University Haikou 570228 China.

Abstract

Catalytic oxidative pyrolysis is a promising method for the preparation of highly adsorptive biochar by introducing oxygen-containing groups. Here, a K₂FeO₄-catalyzed oxidative pyrolysis was described for enhancing the adsorption capability of areca leaf biochar toward methylene blue at low temperature. It was shown that the maximum adsorption capacity of the biochar pyrolyzed at 200 °C was greatly improved from 122.67 to 251.95 mg g^-1 with the catalysis of K₂FeO₄ due to the introduction of surface oxygen-containing groups. In addition, a high adsorption capability was observed over a wide pH range for the K₂FeO₄-modified biochar and nearly neutral pH was obtained after adsorption, further demonstrating the great advantages of K₂FeO₄-catalyzed oxidative pyrolysis. Mechanistic studies revealed that the adsorption of the pristine biochar was mainly determined by hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interaction. Whereas, the adsorption of the K₂FeO₄-modified biochar was attributed to cation exchange besides hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions.