Arabian Journal of Chemistry (2019) 12 , 3611 – 3620
King Saud University
Arabian Journal of Chemistry
www.ksu.edu.sa www.sciencedirect.com
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Removal of pharmaceuticals from municipal wastewater by adsorption onto pyrolyzed pulp mill sludge
R.N. Coimbra a , V. Calisto b , C.I.A. Ferreira b , V.I. Esteves b , M. Otero a, *
a Department of Applied Chemistry and Physics, Institute of Environment, Natural Resources and Biodiversity (IMARENABIO), University of Leo´n, Leo´n 24071, Spain b Department of Chemistry and CESAM (Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies), University of Aveiro, Campus de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
Received 22 August 2015; accepted 1 December 2015 Available online 11 December 2015
KEYWORDS
Abstract A charcoal was produced from primary pulp mill sludge and then used for the adsorptive removal of diclofenac, salicylic acid, ibuprofen and acetaminophen. A main aim was to assess the utilization of this material for the tertiary treatment of sewage. For this purpose, the adsorption of the selected pharmaceuticals from the secondary effluent of a sewage treatment plant (STP) was compared with their adsorption from ultrapure water. Differences in the adsorption kinetics and equilibrium were evident between the four pharmaceuticals considered. However, differences between the adsorption from the two aqueous matrixes considered were negligible. It was hypoth- esized that synergetic microorganism removal compensated the competitive effects in wastewater. 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Paper sludge; Pyrolysis;
Wastewater treatment; Emerging contaminants; Pain reliever; Sorption
water consumption, large wastewater volumes are generated by the pulp and paper industry. This wastewater must be treated before dis- charge in order to accomplish with environmental regulations (Pokhrel and Viraraghavan, 2004). Therefore sludge from wastewater treatment is an unavoidable waste for the pulp and paper industry. Elliott and Mahmood (2005) estimated that around 50 kg of dry sludge result from the production of a tonne of paper, of which approximately 70% is primary sludge and 30% is secondary sludge. Thermal valorization may be considered a viable management choice for such wastes given that landfilling has been prohibited at the EU and that alternatives such as agriculture application or composting are not viable due to the composition of sludge from the pulp and paper industry (Me´ ndez et al., 2009). Among thermal valorization options for the pulp and paper wastes it is pyrolysis, also called destructive distillation (Monte et al., 2009). It involves the heating of the organic waste in the absence of oxygen
1. Introduction
The pulp and paper industry is a strategic economic sector in Europe that largely contributes to the European Union (EU) financial growth and job creation (CEPI, 2013). However, a main counterpart is that pulp and paper production processes are very demanding in terms of energy and water and this industry is considered one of the most pol- luting in the world (Ince et al., 2011). As a consequence of the high
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: marta.otero@unileon.es (M. Otero). Peer review under responsibility of King Saud University.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.arabjc.2015.12.001 1878-5352 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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