Biomass as adsorbent – A depollution cost effective material in a promising market

Abstract

Abstract The manuscript demonstrates aspects of agro-waste biomass as an effective eco-friendly depollution material. Low cost agro-waste biomass derived by forestry activities gains an ever-growing importance in terms of a first-class material to stuff, industrial sized adsorption column for depollution purposes. Given that biomass is abundant, low cost and easy to get, becomes a very promising material, suitable for many industrial procedures to obtain eco-friendliness. Agricultural biomass e.g. sawdust, immobilizes, heavy metal ions, which it is, by all means, beneficial for water and soil restoration, playing, therefore, crucial role in industrial ecology. Greek forestry and cultivations provide a great variety of organic materials servings in laboratory and industrial scale as stuffed biomass in columns for chemical agents’ removal. Agro-waste byproducts demonstrate considerable advantages in column operational aspects. In this study, specific evaluation criteria were introduced for packed bed selection in columns, when heavy metal ion binding is the case. Furthermore, certain agro-byproducts were tested in the lab regarding their kinetic dye adsorption performance. Results confirmed the hypothesis that the proposed agro-byproducts are effective and innovative approaches in usage in Industrial ecology framework and by all means compensate the initial capital expenditures.