Promising carbonaceous materials obtained from agricultural secondary waste applied for water purification

Currently, waste management is a major problem around the world. During the past two decades, scientists, regulatory agencies, and the European Commission (2000/60/EC) have acknowledged pharmaceuticals as an emerging global environmental problem [1]. It has even been shown that during pandemics, prescribed or uncontrolled consumption of drugs, along with general pathogen contamination, led to an unwelcome increase in their quantity in water systems and soil. Thus, offering a proper management for the processing of emerging waste is a very overdue.

The main purpose of the present work is to provide information on the sorption properties of carbonaceous materials obtained from hazelnut/walnut shells and nectarine kernel using a technology developed [2] at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University Institute of Inorganic Chemistry and Electrochemistry, as well as to show the possibility of their use for purifying water polluted by pharmaceuticals (paracetamol) from model solutions and microbial pathogens from landfill leachate water.

We performed an assessment of the adsorptive properties of obtained carbonaceous materials and their efficiency related to the initial concentration of paracetamol in static conditions vs. adsorbent dose/size, contact time, pH, and microbial pathogens vs. adsorbent dose and size in dynamic conditions. which showed the following:

• The maximum amount of paracetamol that can be bound by 0.1 grams of sorbent in a 50 ml solution is 98.55% (in the first 30 minutes).
• An increase in the amount of adsorbents was reciprocated in the value of the sorption efficiency (100%) by largely improving it.
• The adsorption process was well described by the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models.
• The optimal size of sorbent particles for the better sorption of microbiological agents (60nm -1000 µm) was determined.
• The maximum selectivity for all studied pollutants was shown by carbonaceous material obtained from hazelnut shells _~ 70-99%.

1. Sustainable Remediation Technologies for Emerging Pollutants in Aqueous Environment 2024, Pages 79-109. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-18618-9.00011-5

2.Patent P 2021 7309 B