Non-thermal plasma enhances performances of biochar in wastewater treatment and energy storage applications |
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Authors: | Rusen Zhou Xiaoxiang Wang Renwu Zhou Janith Weerasinghe Tianqi Zhang Yanbin Xin Hao Wang Patrick Cullen Hongxia Wang Kostya Ostrikov |
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Affiliation: | 1. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian 116026, China2. School of Chemistry and Physics and QUT Centre for Materials Science, Queensland University of Technology, QLD 4000, Australia3. School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia4. Centre for Future Materials, University of Southern Queensland, QLD 4350, Australia |
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Abstract: | Surface functionalization or modification to introduce more oxygen-containing functional groups to biochar is an effective strategy for tuning the physicochemical properties and promoting follow-up applications. In this study, non-thermal plasma was applied for biochar surface carving before being used in contaminant removal and energy storage applications. The results showed that even a low dose of plasma exposure could introduce a high number density of oxygen-functional groups and enhance the hydrophilicity and metal affinity of the pristine biochar. The plasma-treated biochar enabled a faster metal-adsorption rate and a 40% higher maximum adsorption capacity of heavy metal ion Pb2+. Moreover, to add more functionality to biochar surface, biochar with and without plasma pre-treatment was activated by KOH at a temperature of 800 °C. Using the same amount of KOH, the plasma treatment resulted in an activated carbon product with the larger BET surface area and pore volume. The performance of the treated activated carbon as a supercapacitor electrode was also substantially improved by>30%. This study may provide guidelines for enhancing the surface functionality and application performances of biochar using non-thermal-based techniques. |
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Keywords: | non-thermal plasma surface functionalization biochar modification wastewater treatment supercapacitor |
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