Preparation and characterization of biochar: A case study on textile and food industry sludge management

Abstract

This study aimed to prepare and characterize biochars from Textile and Food industry sludges set at 300 °C, 400 °C, and 500 °C. The residence time was 2 hours for each treatment with nitrogen flow. Biochar yields were decreased by increasing pyrolysis temperature. The parameters such as pH, Electric Conductivity (EC), Carbon/Nitrogen ratio, Total Phosphorus (TP), and Total Potassium (TK) increased with increased pyrolysis temperature. The pH values of textile sludge increased from 6.96 to 7.08, 7.13, respectively, with the increase in pyrolysis temperature. The total phosphorus content 71.75 ppm was found for biochar produced from food industry sludge at 300 °C pyrolysis temperature, and the highest TP value of 170.75 ppm was found for biochar produced from food industry sludge at 500 °C pyrolysis temperature. The TK value of biochar produced from the Food industry sludge was also increased by increasing pyrolysis temperature and ranged from 3277.77 ppm to 3494.72 ppm. The ATR- FTIR identified functional groups O–H, C–H, C–O, and CC from the fingerprint region. This work demonstrates that the thermal conversion of industrial sludge to biochar is a sustainable, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly management approaches.

Keywords

• Biochar
• C/N ratio
• Sludge
• Pyrolysis
• ATR-FTIR (Attenuated Total reflectance-fourier transform infrared spectroscopy)