title: New Evidence for High Sorption Capacity of Hydrochar for Hydrophobic Organic Pollutants.
abstract: This study investigated the sorption potential of hydrochars, produced from hydrothermally carbonizing livestock wastes, toward organic pollutants (OPs) with a wide range of hydrophobicity, and compared their sorption capacity with that of pyrochars obtained from conventional dry pyrolysis from the same feedstock. Results of SEM, Raman, and13C NMR demonstrated that organic carbon (OC) of hydrochars mainly consisted of amorphous alkyl and aryl C. Hydrochars exhibited consistently higher log Kocof both nonpolar and polar OPs than pyrochars. This, combined with the significantly less energy required for the hydrothermal process, suggests that hydrothermal conversion of surplus livestock waste into value-added sorbents could be an alternative manure management strategy. Moreover, the hydrochars log Kocvalues were practically unchanged after the removal of amorphous aromatics, implying that amorphous aromatic C played a comparable role in the high sorption capacity of hydrochars compared to amorphous alkyl C. It was thus concluded that the dominant amorphous C associated with both alkyl and aryl moieties within hydrochars explained their high sorption capacity for OPs. This research not only indicates that animal-manure-derived hydrochars are promising sorbents for environmental applications but casts new light on mechanisms underlying the high sorption capacity of hydrochars for both nonpolar and polar OPs.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University , Beijing 100875, China.|Stockbridge School of Agriculture, University of Massachusetts , Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, United States.
authors.forename: Lanfang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Coastal Plains Soil, Water, and Plant Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture , 2611 West Lucas Street, Florence, South Carolina 29501, United States.
authors.forename: Kyoung S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Ro
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University , Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Ke
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0425-7754
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University , Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Haoran
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University , Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Ziying
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering , Max-Eyth-Allee 100, 14469 Potsdam-Bornim, Germany.
authors.forename: Judy A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Libra
authors.affiliation: Stockbridge School of Agriculture, University of Massachusetts , Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, United States.
authors.forename: Baoshan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Xing
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D002244:Carbon / Q000737:chemistry*; D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions
chemical_list: D002244:Carbon