Carbon cleaners: magnetic biochars for remediation of contaminated agricultural soils

水资源短缺正在推动污水在农业用地上的应用，使包括重金属、杀虫剂、药品和个人护理产品在内的持久性和不可生物降解的污染物有可能进入食物链。传统的生物污水处理技术不能去除这些污染物，因此需要开发额外的管端或补救的就地土壤处理工艺来降低污染物浓度。这个多学科项目的重点是在农业和粮食安全的背景下生产和应用可磁分离的生物炭，用于污染土壤和废水处理。生物炭是碳化生物质的一种形式，从原始生物质或废物原料中提取。这些“碳清洁剂”具有良好的吸附各种无机和有机污染物的能力。通过在生物炭中掺入磁性颗粒并使用磁选，可以简单地从过程或土壤中分离出来。然而，这些材料在土壤基质修复中的应用尚未得到证实。项目目标：选定的生物质/废物原料的特性.生物炭和磁性生物炭的生产.用于去除选定污染物的土壤基质，包括评估吸附能力、选择性和磁选.评估磁性生物炭的应用和去除对土壤生物群的影响

Water scarcity is driving the application of effluent water to agricultural land, risking persistent and non bio-degradable pollutants including heavy metals, pseticides, pharmaceutical and personal care products entering the food chain. Conventional biological wastewater treatment technologies are not designed to remove these pollutants, so additional end-of-pipe or remedial in-situ soil treatment processes need to be developed to reduce pollutant concentrations. This multidisciplinary project focuses on the production and application of magnetically separable biochars for contaminated soil and wastewater treatment in the context of agriculture and food security.Biochars are a form of carbonized biomass, derived from virgin biomass or waste feedstocks. These 'carbon cleaners' have a demonstrated capacity to adsorb a wide range of inorganic and organic pollutants. Simple separation from a process or soil can be achieved by doping biochars with magnetic particles and using magnetic separation. However the application of these materials to remediation of soil matrices has yet to be demonstrated. Project objectives:-Characterisation of selected biomass/waste feedstocks-Production of biochars and magnetic biochars-Application to soil matrices for removal of selected pollutants, including assessment of adsorption capacity, selectivity and magnetic separation-Assessment of impacts of magnetic biochar application and removal on soil biome