Cadmium Elimination via Magnetic Biochar Derived from Cow Manure: Parameter Optimization and Mechanism Insights

Designing an efficient and recyclable adsorbent for cadmium pollution control is an urgent necessity. In this paper, cow manure, an abundant agricultural/animal husbandry byproduct, was employed as the raw material for the synthesis of magnetic cow manure biochar. The optimal preparation conditions were found using the response surface methodology model: 160 °C for the hydrothermal temperature, 600 °C for the pyrolysis temperature, and Fe-loading with 10 wt%. The optimal reaction conditions were also identified via the response surface methodology model: a dosage of 1 g·L−1, a pH of 7, and an initial concentration of 100 mg·L−1. The pseudo-second-order model and the Langmuir model were used to fit the Cd(II) adsorption, and the adsorption capacity was 612.43 mg·g−1. The adsorption was dominated by chemisorption with the mechanisms of ion-exchange, electrostatic attraction, pore-filling, co-precipitation, and the formation of complexations. Compared to the response surface methodology model, the back-propagation artificial neural network model fit the Cd(II) adsorption better as the error values were less. All these results demonstrate the potential application of CM for Cd(II) removal and its optimization through machine-learning processes.