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Thesis
EFFECTIVENESS OF BIOSOLIDS BIOCHAR IN THE REMOVAL OF MULTIPLE POLLUTANTS IN AQUEOUS SOLUTION VIA A COMPARISON OF LAB EXPERIMENTS VERSUS REAL-WORLD APPLICATION OF A PASSIVE BIOCHAR FILTER
University of West Florida
Master of Science (MS), University of West Florida
2018
Abstract
With the growing population of the World comes an increase in the amount of biowaste, such as biosolids, produced. Growing populations also lead to an increasing amount of harmful nutrients and heavy metals being released into our environmental waters from stormwater runoff, agricultural, and industrial activities. Converting biosolids into biochar offers a promising way of disposing of biowaste and possibly mitigating the effects of pollutants in environmental waters. This can be especially useful to people in developing or developed, yet economically challenged areas. This research aimed to create a passive filter filled with biosolids biochar that could be placed within streams or existing stormwater infrastructure to filter out harmful pollutants and testing its effectiveness at removing several target analytes commonly found in stormwater runoff, specifically nitrate, phosphate, nickel, cadmium, lead, and copper. The main goal in the creation of this filter was to keep it as low-tech and cost effective as possible to make its application more feasible for areas lacking the capital for more conventional surface and stormwater treatment. This field experiment was then compared to the results of concurrent shaker and column experiments, which used a spike solution and water from the same stream where the filter experiment took place, to determine how accurately lab experiments reflect the conditions found in nature. The results from this experiment showed that the passive biochar filter had no real effect on the target analytes found in the stream, although several were only present in non-significant amounts. The two lab experiments behaved similarly showing that the biosolids biochar should have been effective in removing nitrate, and lead, while experiencing some leaching of phosphate. The spike solution, which had a lower starting pH, indicated that all target analytes should have experienced some adsorption (i.e., removal) from the filter. While the lab experiments did not accurately reflect the conditions seen in nature, results indicate that initial concentrations as well as pH plays an important role in the filter's adsorption of various analytes and should be taken into consideration when using biosolids biochar. Better engineering of the passive biochar filters as well as future pH studies are critical in the determination of the true effectiveness of biosolids biochar in the removal or multiple pollutants in environmental waters via a passive filter.
Details
- Title
- EFFECTIVENESS OF BIOSOLIDS BIOCHAR IN THE REMOVAL OF MULTIPLE POLLUTANTS IN AQUEOUS SOLUTION VIA A COMPARISON OF LAB EXPERIMENTS VERSUS REAL-WORLD APPLICATION OF A PASSIVE BIOCHAR FILTER
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Publisher
- University of West Florida
- Format
- text
- Copyright
- http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
- Identifiers
- 99380090839206600
- Academic Unit
- Earth and Environmental Sciences
- Language
- English
- Awarding Institution
- University of West Florida; Master of Science (MS)
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), University of West Florida