Production of sugarcane bagasse-based activated carbon for formaldehyde gas removal from potted plants exposure chamber

Abstract

Agricultural wastes such as rice straw, sugar beet, and sugarcane bagasse have become a critical environmental issue due to growing agriculture demand. This study aimed to investigate the valorization possibility of sugarcane bagasse waste for activated carbon preparation. It also aimed to fully characterize the prepared activated carbon (BET surface area) via scanning electron microscope (SEM) and in terms of surface functional groups to give a basic understanding of its structure and to study the adsorption capacity of the sugarcane bagasse-based activated carbon using aqueous methylene blue (MB). The second main objective was to evaluate the performance of sugarcane bagasse-based activated carbon for indoor volatile organic compounds removal using the formaldehyde gas (HCHO) as reference model in two potted plants chambers. The first chamber was labeled the polluted chamber (containing formaldehyde gas without activated carbon) and the second was taken as the treated chamber (containing formaldehyde gas with activated carbon). The results indicated that the sugarcane bagasse-based activated carbon has a moderate BET surface area (557 m 2 /g) with total mesoporous volume and microporous volume of 0.310 and 0.273 cm 3 /g, respectively. The prepared activated carbon had remarkable adsorption capacity for MB. Formaldehyde removal rate was then found to be more than 67% in the treated chamber with the sugarcane bagasse-based activated carbon. The plants' responses for this application as dry weight, chlorophyll contents, and protein concentration were also investigated.Implications: Preparation of activated carbon from sugarcane bagasse (SCBAC) is a promising approach to produce cheap and efficient adsorbent for gas pollutants removal. It may be also a solution for the agricultural wastes problems in big cities, particularly in Egypt. MB adsorption tests suggest that the SCBAC have high adsorption capacity. Formaldehyde gas removal in the plant chambers indicates that the SCBAC have potential to recover volatile gases. The results confirmed that the activated carbon produced from sugarcane bagasse waste raw materials can be used as an applicable adsorbent for treating a variety of gas pollutants from the indoor environment.

Environmental Air Pollution Control by New Egyptian Ward El Nile Based Filter

“…This proved that the prepared activated carbon is mesoporous since the methylene blue is used to characterize mesoporous activated carbons. Mohamed et al (2015a) reported that the sugarcane bagasse-based activated carbon was used successfully as adsorbing agents for the removal of MB dye (around 90%) from aqueous solutions. The isotherms of MB adsorption were evaluated according to the major two parameter models, Langmuir and Freundlich.…”

Activated Carbon from Bagasse and its Application for Water Vapor Adsorption

“…The detail composition are 50% cellulose, 25% lignin and 25% hemicellulose 4,6,7) . The high cellulose content is an important point to choose the bagasse for raw material carbon production [8][9][10] . Carbon-based materials are functional for many purposes such as for gas adsorption 11,12) , wastewater treatment 13) , electrodes in media storage 14,15) , antibacterial agent 16) , gas storage 17) , and for photocatalytic uses 18) .…”

Effect of Salinity and PH on the Industrial Effluent Treatment by Activated Carbon: Modeling of the Kinetic Adsorption and Equilibrium Isotherms

“…A great variety of adsorbents (natural or synthetic) have been used for the removal of organic substances from industrial air effluents and aqueous solutions. Activated carbons are considered as the most effective organics adsorbents with high surface areas (Andriantsiferana et al, 2015;Mohamed et al, 2015;Mohamed et al, 2016aMohamed et al, , 2016b. The adsorption capacity of activated carbon for the liquid adsorption of phenolic compounds depends on the solution conditions such as temperature, pH, ionic strength; and the adsorbate concentration (Magdy et al, 2018).…”