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Efficient removal of microplastics from aqueous solution by a novel magnetic biochar: performance, mechanism, and reusability

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Abstract

Microplastics’ (MPs) pollution removal from water bodies has become an urgent task to ensure water quality safety and water ecological security on a global scale. In this work, coprecipitation was employed to investigate the adsorption of MPs by magnetic biochar (MRB) prepared from agricultural waste rice husks in an aquatic system. The results showed that MRB can adsorb up to 99.96% of MPs in water; acidic conditions were favorable for the effective MPs’ adsorption reaction, and competing anions had a greater effect on adsorption. The adsorption mechanism results revealed that the adsorption of MPs by MRB was a spontaneous process, and electrostatic attraction, surface complexation, hydrogen bonding and π-π interactions were present in the adsorption process. Furthermore, after the adsorption of MPs, MRB can be recovered by thermal treatment (500 °C) and still exhibits up to 90% MPs adsorption (after four uses). This work reveals that MRB is an inexpensive, efficient, and reusable nanoscale adsorbent for MPs pollution removal in water, which may provide new ideas for microplastic pollution control in the aqueous environment.

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The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Shaanxi Provincial Department of Education Scientific Research Special Project (Nos. 20JY008, 20JS017) and the Special Scientific Research Project of Hanzhong City-Shaanxi University of Technology Co-construction State Key Laboratory (No. SXJ-2106).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical & Environment Science, Shaanxi University of Technology, Hanzhong, 723001, Shaanxi, China

    Juanjuan Wu, Chan Yang, Juan Shi, Zhifeng Liu, Chen Li & Fengmin Song

  2. Qinba Mountains of Bio-Resource Collaborative Innovation Center of Southern Shaanxi Province, Shaanxi University of Technology, Hanzhong, 723001, Shaanxi, China

    Juanjuan Wu, Chan Yang, Juan Shi, Zhifeng Liu, Chen Li & Fengmin Song

  3. College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, **anyang, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Hanghang Zhao

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  1. Juanjuan Wu
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  2. Chan Yang
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  3. Hanghang Zhao
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  4. Juan Shi
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  5. Zhifeng Liu
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  7. Fengmin Song
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Contributions

Juanjuan Wu, Chan Yang, and Hanghang Zhao designed this study, collected, analyzed, and interpreted the data. Juanjuan Wu, Chan Yang, Juan Shi, Zhifeng Liu, Chen Li, and Fengmin Song prepared the materials and wrote the manuscript. Fengmin Song took charge of the acquisition funding. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Wu, J., Yang, C., Zhao, H. et al. Efficient removal of microplastics from aqueous solution by a novel magnetic biochar: performance, mechanism, and reusability. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 26914–26928 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24130-1

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