Engineering Commons^™

Mercury Removal From Aqueous Solution Using Natural, Synthetic, And Modified Zeolites, Mahshid Attari

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Mercury has been recognized as one of the most hazardous heavy metals. The discharge of effluents containing mercury in soil, sediments and water can inflict an irreversible harm to the environment and human health. In this work, zeolitized coal fly ash as well as gold and gold-iron modified zeolites were successfully employed for mercury removal from a typical industrial wastewater. X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermo-gravimetrical analyses (TGA), surface area measurement (BET), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDX) were utilized to explore the characteristics of the raw and modified zeolites. A pseudo-second-order kinetic model was identified to best represent the kinetic data for …

Production Of Activated Carbons From Pyrolytic Char For Environmental Applications, Anastasia Colomba

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Biomass pyrolysis has the potential to become a major component of future biorefineries, since biomass is cracked to produce gases, liquid products (bio-oil) and solid products (bio-char). In order for the process to be economically feasible, it is necessary to obtain the maximum value from each stream, thus no by-product can be regarded as a waste.

Bio-char is normally regarded as a by-product of fast pyrolysis, which is optimized to target bio-oil production. However, there are many potentially attractive applications for it: for example, it can be used for the production of activated carbons, which are the most commonly used …