Selective removal behavior of lead and cadmium from calcium-rich solution by MgO loaded soybean straw biochars and mechanism analysis

Modified biochars has great potential for removing heavy metals from aquatic environments, but the removal of heavy metals by biochars is usually significantly affected by the co-presence of the macro amount of metal ions, such as Ca. Enhancing the ion exchange capacity of biochar by increasing its alkali metal content is a very prospective method to improve its selectivity. In this paper, MgO loaded biochar (MBC) was synthesized by co-pyrolysis of soybean straw and MgCl2·6H2O for selective remove Pb and Cd from calcium-rich wastewater. MBC exhibited excellent selective adsorption performance for Pb and Cd in calcium-rich wastewater due to the successful loading of MgO. The adsorption capacities of MBC for Pb and Cd were 582.57 and 167.40 mg/g, and the removal efficiency of Ca below 2.5% with an initial concentration of 800 mg/L. The ion exchange capacities of Pb and Cd enhanced almost 27 and 23 times than BC. By analyzing the results of BET, XRD, SEM-EDS, XPS and FTIR, the adsorption mechanisms of MBC were mainly including ion exchange, precipitation with minerals, and interaction with oxygen-containing functional groups. The easy preparation method and high selective adsorption capacity makes MBC an ideal alternative for efficiently selective removal Pb and Cd from calcium-rich wastewater.