Journal of Cleaner Production 175 (2018) 361e375

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Review

Recent advances in applications of activated carbon from biowaste for

wastewater treatment: A short review
Syieluing Wong a, Norzita Ngadi a, *, Ibrahim M. Inuwa b, Onn Hassan a
a
Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
b
Department of Industrial Chemistry, Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Nigeria

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Rapid population growth and the resultant pollution of freshwater sources are expected to create water
stress conditions on the world in the near future. Adsorption technique is a popular method in reducing
the amount of pollutants that enter water bodies, and researchers are focusing on development of
Keywords: activated carbons from cheap sources to replace costly commercial activated carbons. Remediation of
Dyes wastewater using activated carbon from biowaste (defined in this paper as waste material derived from
Heavy metals
living organisms or of organic origin, and capable of decomposing under anaerobic or aerobic conditions)
Organic pollutants
is gaining attention among researchers, as such technology reduces the cost of activated carbon pro-
Pharmaceutical and personal care products
Adsorbent
duction while reducing the cost on biowaste disposal. This paper summarizes recent development and
Biowaste findings on application of activated carbon synthesized from biowaste in wastewater treatment.
Adsorption efficiencies of newly developed activated carbons in treatment of different pollutants
(including dyes, metal ions, pharmaceutical and personal care products, organic pollutants) in simulated
and real wastewater are also tabulated for easy reference. The potential of activated carbons modified
with magnetic materials is also discussed, followed by recent advances and challenges in applications of
activated carbons derived from biowaste in wastewater treatment.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
2. Synthesis of ACs from biowaste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
3. Removal of contaminants using ACs derived from biowaste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
3.1. Dyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
3.2. Heavy metals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
3.3. Organic pollutants (in leachate and palm oil mill effluents (POME)) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
3.4. Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
3.5. Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
4. Recent advances on adsorption of contaminants onto ACs derived from biowaste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
5. Future direction and challenges in wastewater treatment with ACs from biowaste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
6. Conclusions and recommendations for further studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

1. Introduction

Due to advances in science and technology, various chemicals

* Corresponding author. and substances are used to improve the quality of human daily life
E-mail address: norzita@cheme.utm.my (N. Ngadi).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.12.059
0959-6526/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
362 S. Wong et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 175 (2018) 361e375
as well as consumer products. However, the abuse and uncon-
trolled disposal of such chemicals into water bodies often create
long term adverse effects on the aquatic life and human health. The
situation is worsened by the fact that most pollutants from in-
dustrial processes are metal ions or recalcitrant organic molecules,
which are persistent in water bodies. The presence of these pol-
lutants makes the river water unsuitable for drinking as well as
recreational activities.
Reports and statistics from several international organizations
reveal that 70% of current global freshwater consumptions is
related to irrigation and food production, and such consumption is
expected to increase by 19% (including rain fed and irrigated agri-
culture) following global population growth over the next 40 years
(UN Water, 2017). Furthermore, many contaminants find their ways
to the underground freshwater sources, hence compromising the
quality of drinking water. Urban settlement is the main factor for
water pollution in developed countries. On the other hand, 70% of
the industrial waste in developing countries is discarded into water
without treatment, and 90% of wastewater in these countries ended
up in rivers, lakes and coastal zones (UN Water, 2017; UNESCO,
2017), which jeopardize food security and access to safe drinking
and bathing water. This situation is worsened by the development
of heavily polluting industries in developing countries. Increasing
water demand combined with reducing number of clean fresh-
water sources is expected to result in global water crisis that will
occur in the coming decades. If no corrective actions are taken to
curb water pollution, it is anticipated that two-thirds of the world
population will suffer water stress conditions by 2025, where
available freshwater sources fail to meet water demand due to poor
quality (which is the result of water pollution) (UNESCO, 2017).
While discussing water contamination from various sources, it is
important to recognize the significance of bioaccumulation and
biomagnification effects as a threat to marine ecosystem and hu-
man health, especially in developing and developed countries.
Various industrial and domestic wastes are constantly released into
river ways every day. The chemical compounds contained in the
waste may enter the aquatic plants and animals by various means,
including respiration and photosynthesis. When the adsorption
rate of a particular chemical into an organism exceeds metabolism
and excretion rate, bioaccumulation takes place. The rise in con-
centration of accumulated contaminant in a particular organism
beyond the tolerance level results in death and the subsequent
alteration of food chains. Transfer of the contaminants also takes
place when the organism is consumed by a predator at higher level
in the food chain. Thus, the concentration of the chemical accu-
mulated in the consumer increased with the amount of contami-
nated food. The process repeats itself, and biomagnification occurs
as animals at the higher place in a food chain contain higher level of
chemicals (Matulik et al., 2017; Zenker et al., 2014). Ultimately, the
top predator (which is human in most food webs) can suffer irre-
versible damages or deaths due to high concentration of chemical
compounds in the bodies (Bretschger and Vinogradova, 2017;
Manosa et al., 2001). The toxins contained in a mother's body can
be passed to the foetus during pregnancy, as well as babies through
breast milk (Polanco Rodriguez et al., 2017). Such exposure is
believed to affect the development of infants (Tatsuta et al., 2017)
and possibly leads to irreversible damage to brain functions,
including autism spectrum disorders (Ye et al., 2017). It is stated
that in order for bioaccumulation and biomagnification to happen
and cause negative effects to animals and human, the compound
must be long-lived, mobile, soluble in fats and biologically active
(Peng et al., 2017). Therefore, it is important to control and mini-
mize the release of toxic and hazardous compounds into river ways
by setting up discharge limits of industrial effluents and domestic
wastewater.
Recognizing the urgency and importance in preserving the
freshwater sources, various processes are designed to remove toxic
pollutants from wastewater prior to entering rivers, including
adsorption (Sohaimi et al., 2017; Wong et al., 2017a), membrane
filtration (Dickhout et al., 2017), and electrochemical advanced
oxidation methods (Moreira et al., 2017). Among these methods,
adsorption has been developed and applied extensively due to
several advantages, including easy operation, comparatively lower
operating cost compared to other methods and high removal effi-
ciency (Van Tran et al., 2017; Wendimu et al., 2017; Wong et al.,
2017b). Despite these, researchers continue to seek alternatives to
commercial activated carbons (ACs) with adsorbents from waste
materials in order to reduce the material cost associated with the
process. Derivation of adsorbents from different waste materials,
including tires (Lin and Wang, 2017), incineration fly ash (Xue et al.,
2014), waste carpet (Hassan and Elhadidy, 2017) for wastewater
treatment has been investigated, with the objective to convert
these waste materials (which costs money and special licenses in
certain cases) to value-added products (which could be sold for
additional income), in accordance with the waste-to-wealth
concept (Egun, 2012). Many studies have identified huge poten-
tial in production of adsorbents from biowaste, which is defined as
waste material derived from living organisms or of organic origin,
and capable of decomposing under anaerobic or aerobic conditions
(FoE, 2004). Most of the biowaste studied are agricultural waste,
which are usually left to decompose or burnt to fertilize the plan-
tation land after harvesting (for example, rice husk and corn stalk).
Biowaste also include residues from plants that are not edible and
have to be discarded after edible parts are consumed (sugarcane
bagasse, nut shells, fruits peels, tea waste). Some researchers also
explore the potential of algae (Daneshvar et al., 2017) and biowaste
that originate from animals (Sun et al., 2017) in ACs synthesis, as
illustrated in the later sections of this paper. High carbon content in
these materials makes them suitable for adsorbent production. In
addition, conversion of these waste materials to absorbents adds
commercial value to these products, which otherwise require extra
cost for disposal.
Due to the utmost importance of the development of adsorbent
from biowaste, countless studies and rapid communications have
been reported in this research area with attention focused on
development of various adsorbents from biowaste including ACs,
flocculants (Razak et al., 2016), and cryogel (Ngadi et al., 2015; Rusli
and Ngadi, 2016). However, this paper only reviews some of the
outstanding publications on ACs synthesized from biowaste for
removal of dyes, heavy metal ions, pharmaceutical and personal
care products (PPCPs), as well as organic pollutants, from real and
simulated wastewater. In each category of contaminants, the
adsorption capacities of different adsorbents are grouped into ta-
bles for easy comparison. The research strategy used in this work is
adapted from work by Scarazzato et al. (2017) with modifications.
This involved identification of relevant research works from the
most recognized academic database such as Scopus, Science Direct
and Google Scholar websites. The keywords used in initial search
included different combinations of keywords such as “activated
carbons”, “biowaste”, “adsorption”, “adsorbent” “wastewater
treatment”, “dyes”, “heavy metals”, and “pharmaceutical and per-
sonal care products”, “organic pollutant”. The search result was
then filtered by title and abstract. Additional rules were also used in
selection of research works for detailed analysis, including avail-
ability of abstract and full text. Considering that many review pa-
pers on wastewater treatment via adsorption were published
previously (summarized in Table 1), only the research works pub-
lished in 2016 and 2017 are included in this review as an update to
earlier reviews, although earlier works are also used to contextu-
alize the work and to compare with recently developed adsorbents
 S. Wong et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 175 (2018) 361e375 363

Table 1
Summary on recent reviews on wastewater treatment using different adsorbents.

Review paper Conclusion

Uddin (2017) Natural clays possess high adsorption performance towards heavy metals due to the special properties, and such performance can be enhanced
via suitable chemical modifications. Studies on synthesis and potential applications of novel nano clay composites are necessary.
Thines et al. (2017) Magnetic biochars synthesized from agricultural biowaste display sophisticated performance in removal of dyes, metals and pharmaceutical
compounds from wastewater. Feasibility of magnetic biochars combined with metallic salts' ions in electronic sector is also indicated by their
high capacitance value and conductivity.
Kumar et al. (2017) Cellulose based grafted biosorbents could be more advantageous in adsorption of heavy metals from wastewater provided that the synthesis
conditions are optimized.
Ahmed (2017b) ACs from biowaste are good adsorbent of three antibiotics, namely tetracyclines, quinolones, and penicillins.
Ahmed (2017a) ACs from biowaste are good adsorbent of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory pharmaceutical compounds, especially ibuprofen, ketoprofen,
naproxen, and diclofenac.
Suhas et al. (2016) Natural and modified celluloses are good adsorbents and as AC precursors, however it is necessary to study on economic feasibility and
environmental impacts of such materials.
Jain et al. (2016) Hydrothermal carbonization of biomass waste is more advantageous than conventional biochar production, as the former process results in
improved surface property of hydrochar and enhances the subsequent chemical activation step.
Zare et al. (2015) Carbon nanotubes have higher adsorption capacities than ACs on synthetic dyes, and the performance can be enhanced via surface
modifications.
Yahya et al. (2015) Biowaste from agricultural sector is proven to be a good source for ACs production, as such materials possess large surface area, high
microporosity and selectivity, hence is advantageous in removal of pollutants from wastewater.

in term of adsorption capacities and efficiency. The papers that
fulfilled the mentioned criteria were then selected for critical re-
view and discussion.
2. Synthesis of ACs from biowaste
Up to date, commercial ACs used in wastewater treatment are
produced from coconut shells, coals, woods and lignite (Demirbas,
2009; Li et al., 2008). ACs possess several desirable properties that
enable its use in adsorption: large surface area and porosity,
together with surface chemistry that react with molecules with
specific functional groups. However, as wastewater treatment is
less profitable compared to other industrial sectors, it is always
preferable to reduce the cost involved in its treatment. The po-
tential of biowaste to produce low cost adsorbent has been iden-
tified since the last decade, and a great number of studies have been
conducted to determine the characteristics and efficiencies of ACs
produced from different biowaste in removal of different pollutants
from wastewater.
As shown in Fig. 1, synthesis of ACs from biomass generally starts
with pre-treatment of the sample, including crushing, drying (at
~100
C) and sieving to obtain small particles within a specific size
range. This is followed by carbonization of biomass in dry inert
atmosphere (300e500
C) which facilitates elimination of volatile
matters and tars, and leads to formation of biochar. Recently, the
use of hydrothermal carbonization is gaining popularity in ACs
preparation. In this process, the biomass is mixed with water or
reagent solution prior to carbonization (Islam et al., 2017a). The
product from hydrothermal carbonization is termed as hydrochar
due to the different synthesis method used to that of biochar. It is
claimed that hydrothermal carbonization is more advantageous
than conventional carbonization as the initial biomass drying step
is not required. In addition, a lower temperature (180e250
C) is
used in such process, as the pressure from the steam present in the
closed system acts as an extra driving force to convert the biomass
to hydrochar. It is believed that subcritical water formed under such
conditions degrade cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin in the
biomass (Kalderis et al., 2014). In addition, the acidic gases pro-
duced during the heating (CO2, NO2, SO2 etc) may react with water
to form an acidic solution, thus the need to treat such gaseous
pollutants is eliminated. The presence of several functional groups,
especially oxygenated ones, on the hydrochar was also reported,
which results in higher adsorption capacity of contaminants (Liu
et al., 2010). Several studies showed that the presence of such
functional groups improves adsorption of heavy metals on the
hydrochar despite lower surface area compared to ACs (Zhou et al.,
2017).
After carbonization of biomass, physical or chemical activations
are required to activate the carbonized material. Physical activation
is normally performed by passing inert gases (CO2, N2 etc) or steam
(Selvaraju and Abu Bakar, 2017) through the sample at high tem-
perature (700e900
C). Under such conditions, conversion of

Fig. 1. Synthesis routes of ACs from biowaste.

364 S. Wong et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 175 (2018) 361e375

carbon material into CO2 gas through oxidation is limited, hence carbon mass during homogeneous pore development in the intra-
the yield of activated carbon is increased compared to activation in microdomain regions. In the case of steam activation, inhomoge-
air. On the other hand, chemical activation involves addition of neous activation was observed, which resulted in a lower efficiency
activating reagent (usually acid or base) to the biochar/hydrochar in micropores development. In addition, reduction of sizes of par-
prior to heating at 300e500
C, followed by washing to neutralize ticles and microdomains after steam activation was also observed
the pH of AC formed. KOH is one of the common basic reagents used by Kim et al. (2017), as illustrated in Fig. 2. In short, steam activation
in chemical activation, as it inhibits tar formation in carbonized produced a lower yield of AC (shown by C6S9 in Fig. 2) with limited
biomass (Azmi et al., 2015). In addition, KOH reacts with carbon in porosity, while chemical activation produced AC with uniform pore
the precursor to form K2CO3 (Basta et al., 2009), which then reacts development (indicated by C6K9 in Fig. 2).
further with carbon to form K, K2O, CO and CO2. These processes Some researchers attempted modifications of standard synthe-
generate porosities in the adsorbents with large micropore volume sis method of AC. In chemical activation, the biomass is normally
and narrower size distribution (Azmi et al., 2016b). Zhang et al. mixed with chemical activating reagent prior to pyrolysis at high
(2017b) successfully produced AC with a high surface area temperatures (550e900
C), and such process is classified as one
(2388 m2/g) from hemp stem, despite its high ash content that is step pyrolysis. In certain studies, two-step pyrolysis of biomass was
disadvantageous to AC production. In their study, the hemp stem carried out, where carbonization at lower temperature (>550
C)
was carbonized at 500
C (N2 atmosphere) for 1 h. The carbonized precedes addition of chemical activating agent (Tran et al., 2017b).
material was then ground and mixed with KOH solution for 24 h, Zubrik et al. (2017) synthesized AC from corn stalk using one stage
then dried and activated at 800
C (N2 atmosphere). The use of and two-stage activation methods for cadmium adsorption. Upon
other reagents like ZnCl2 is also reported, as it reacts with the char comparison, two-step pyrolysis increased microporosity and sur-
and governs the pore distribution during the heat treatment face area of the AC, which lead to a higher adsorption capacity.
(Caturla et al., 1991). However, no obvious difference was observed by the same research
It is also common to use acidic activating reagent. Addition of team in electro-chemical properties of adsorbents from both
H3PO4 to the biochar causes hydrolysis of glycosidic linkage in procedures.
polysaccharides of hemicellulose and cellulose (Ahmed Hared et al., Preparation of AC using a three-step process was done by Tran
2007). In chemical activation involving H3PO4, it is possible to et al. (2017b). The cleaned, dried and crushed biomass (Cassia fis-
control the reaction of the acid with the carbonized biomass by tula, also known as golden shower) underwent hydrothermal
manipulating the gases used. A study by Kan et al. (2017) prepared carbonization process, and the hydrochar formed was pyrolyzed to
ACs from spent tea leaves mixed with H3PO4 then heated to 450
C form biochar. Finally, the biochar was chemically activated using
in a different atmosphere. In oxygen and air atmosphere, H3PO4 K2CO3 to produce AC. It was observed that the AC prepared using
reacts to form phosphorus oxides, which then reacts with oxygen to such method showed a higher adsorption performance towards
form CeOeP bonds. The cross-linking polyaromatic is extended, cationic dye than AC prepared using one-step and two-step pro-
therefore the higher porosity and high surface area could be cesses. Characterization results revealed that the morphology of
observed on the AC formed. In air atmosphere, P2O5 is also formed adsorbents is strongly dependent on the preparation methods,
from reaction of H3PO4 with air, and the sublimation of P2O5 from while non-micropore volume of the adsorbent increased with the
the AC increases the porosity development in AC to a further extent. stage number of the activating process. Therefore, three-stage
On the other hand, AC activation in steam atmosphere increases the
carbon deposition and decreases the porosity in AC formed.
Various combinations of conditions (temperature, type of gases
and reagents used) were reported on chemical activation in liter-
ature, as shown in Section 3. When compared to physical activation,
chemical activation requires a higher cost associated with the
chemical activating reagent and acid/base used in neutralization of
ACs’ pH. However, chemical activation requires a lower activation
temperature, hence reduced energy consumption (Tang et al., 2017;
Zhang et al., 2017b). In addition, ACs produced from chemical
activation is reported to have higher surface area as well as well-
developed porosity compared to the physically activated ACs
(Zubrik et al., 2017). Therefore, chemical activation is more widely
adopted in AC preparation.
The benefits of chemical activation over physical activation can
be explained by the microstructure model proposed by Kim et al.
(2017). The model postulates that every AC particle contains
numerous microdomains in spherical shape, where the micropores
develop. Mesopores, on the other hand, forms in the inter-
microdomain space (Shiratori et al., 2009). In a study by Kim
et al. (2017), phenol resin-based spherical carbon was converted
to activated carbon via chemical activation (KOH) and physical
activation (steam). Upon comparison, AC prepared from KOH acti-
vation always possesses larger specific surface area, micropore
volume and average pore width than AC prepared via steam acti-
vation at the same activation temperature. Such difference is
obvious at activation temperature of 900
C, with the surface area
of AC activated by KOH being 2878 m2/g, while AC activated by Fig. 2. Differences between AC prepared from steam activation (C6S9) and KOH acti-
steam possesses a surface area of 2213 m2/g. A lower yield of AC vation (C6K9) respectively explained in term of microstructure model. Reprinted from
was also observed for chemical activation, due to greater loss of work by Kim et al. (2017), with permission from Elsevier.
 S. Wong et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 175 (2018) 361e375
synthesis is considered a more effective approach in AC prepara-
tion. However more evidence is needed to verify the positive effects
of such process on various adsorbates.
It is worthy to mention that microwave heating emerges to be
an attractive option over convective and conductive heating sys-
tems, which is widely utilized in char's activation. When compared
to the latter, microwave heating involves the transfer of radiation
energy (instead of heat) to all particles in the sample, which ab-
sorbs and converts the energy to heat rapidly (Haque, 1999).
Therefore, a temperature gradient as observed in conventional
heating is eliminated (Yuen and Hameed, 2009). The high carbon
content in biomass makes it a good adsorber of microwave energy.
Activation of AC precursors can be achieved in much shorter time
with microwave heating compared to conventional heating, which
translates to savings in consumption of energy and gases used
during the treatment. Results from several studies suggest that
microwave irradiation improves the surface area of AC to a great
extent. For instance, the use of conventional heating during acti-
vation of precursor prepared from sugarcane bagasse produced AC
with BET surface area of 100 m2/g and external surface area of
44 m2/g (Azmi et al., 2015). Activation of the same precursor via
microwave irradiation produced AC with BET surface area of
1621 m2/g and external surface area of 961 m2/g (Foo et al., 2013). A
similar observation was made related to AC produced from sea
mango through conventional heating (452 m2/g) and microwave
heating (1437 m2/g) (Azmi et al., 2016). Abioyea and Ania (2017)
have also recognized the advantage of microwave activation in
improvement of BET surface area and porosity development.
Nevertheless, more studies are needed to make a definitive state-
ment, as surface functional groups of AC also play important role on
the adsorption performance.
In short, evidence shows that chemical activation of carbonized
biomass produce ACs with higher adsorption performance,
regardless to the type of biowaste used. The ACs properties can be
further enhanced by utilizing three-steps preparation process, and
selection of suitable chemical activating agent.
3. Removal of contaminants using ACs derived from biowaste
ACs are proven to be effective in removal of various pollutants
from aqueous solutions, including dyes, pharmaceutical and per-
sonal care products (PPCPs), heavy metals, organic pollutants. Thus,
the latest research papers on applications of ACs derived from
biowaste are grouped into different categories according to the
types of adsorbates studied. Each subsection contains a table that
summarizes the important aspects of the latest research works,
including type of biowaste used, preparation steps of the AC,
together with removal efficiency or percentage removal of target
pollutant.
3.1. Dyes
Dyes are identified to be one of the heavy pollutants of water
bodies, due to the use of large amount of colorings required in
clothing, paper products, paints and plastics. There are more than
3600 types of dyes used in the textile industry alone (Pure Earth
and Green Cross Switzerland, 2017). 2e20% of dyes used in the
textile industry are lost in effluent discharge (Ahmed et al., 2012),
thus the textile industry is identified to be the main industrial
source of water pollution (Chequer et al., 2013). Most dye molecules
are resistant to degradation in water due to their complex struc-
tures. Dye molecules reduce the amount of sunlight in the water,
hence the photosynthesis of aquatic plants (Regti et al., 2017b).
Ingestion of dyes also causes mutagenic and carcinogenic effects to
human bodies (Alizadeh and Mahjoub, 2017; Kalita et al., 2017).
365
Therefore, large numbers of studies are carried out on removal of
dyes, especially methylene blue (MB), which causes complications
to eyes, skins as well as brain functions (Ardekani et al., 2017).
The recent studies on adsorption of dyes on ACs derived from
biowaste are listed in Table 2. Studies on the same dye are arranged
in decreasing order of the adsorption capacity as determined from
the experimental results. However, it has to be noted that direct
comparison on ACs’ performances in term of adsorption capacity is
meaningless due to the differences of these studies in many as-
pects, including type of biomass, gases/reagents used in physical/
chemical activation steps, as well as experiment conditions and
data analysis Nonetheless, the superior property of the adsorbent
prepared using a three-stage preparation is indicated by the high-
est adsorption capacity among the listed adsorbents. In compari-
son, very low adsorption capacities of MB on biomass without
activation were recorded (0.66 mg/g on sweet lemon peel (Singh
et al., 2017), 94.9 mg/g on waste egg shell and membrane (Abdel-
Khalek et al., 2017)). Such comparison reveals the importance of
preparation steps on the performance of adsorbents.
Extremely high adsorption of two dyes used in wool carpet dyes,
Lanasyn orange (LO) (2.60  103 mg/g) and Lanasyn gray (LG)
(2.60  103 mg/g) on nanoporous ACs derived from chemically
activated bamboo cane was reported by Pradhananga et al. (2017).
The superior adsorption performance is attributed to the high
surface area (2130 m2/g) and pore volume (2.69 cc/g) possessed by
the ACs, assuming filling of adsorbates molecules into the adsor-
bent pores is the predominant mechanism. High adsorption ca-
pacity of methylene green 5 (MB5) by ACs from golden shower is
also observed (Tran et al., 2017b), which is attributed to the three-
step activation as discussed previously. Nevertheless, the adsorp-
tion study also indicates that the adsorption performances of the
ACs produced are independent of their BET surface area, due to the
predominant effect of p-p interaction between adsorbents and
adsorbates compared to the role of pore filling. More studies are
required to verify the superior adsorption properties of MG5, LO
and LG onto the ACs, as there is a lack of literature for adsorption of
these dyes for comparison purpose.
On the contrary, adsorption of methylene blue (MB) onto ACs
derived from biowaste as well as other adsorbents is well studied.
The adsorption capacities of MB onto ACs from various biowaste
range in 17.44e476.2 mg/g. AC prepared from medical cotton
possesses the highest MB adsorption in this list (476.2 mg/g of MB
adsorption), which is only lower than that of AC produced via mi-
crowave heating of phosphoric acid activated beer (487.4 mg/g)
(Hao et al., 2014). The similarity in ACs preparation in both studies
may suggest the advantages in using microwave heating of AC
precursor treated with H3PO4 during the chemical activation step.
Few ACs produced through microwave heating of biowaste
possessed high MB adsorption performance (Deng et al., 2010; Foo
and Hameed, 2012; Hao et al., 2014), and the use of H3PO4 may
push the adsorption performance to a higher level. However, more
studies are needed to verify such assumption.
3.2. Heavy metals
Potential hazards brought by heavy metals and several anions in
drinking water have raised the concern among the public. The
sources of these ions include chemical plants as well as landfills
(leaching of metals from the solid waste). Most of these ions are
toxic and carcinogenic, hence bring irreversible damages to human
bodies. Consumption of metal ions and anions usually causes
chronic effects instead of acute effects, thus humans can suffer from
long term exposure to such contaminants without realizing it. To
date, adverse effects of most heavy metals and anions to human
body are identified (Jaishankar et al., 2014), and safety discharge
366 S. Wong et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 175 (2018) 361e375

Table 2
Dyes adsorption on adsorbents derived from biomass. . (adsorbates were prepared in aqueous solutions unless otherwise mentioned).

Biomass Source Target pollutant Adsorption Capacity, Qea Ref

Bamboo cane powder (H3PO4/600
C, H2O þ N2) Lanasyn orange (LO) 2600 (Pradhananga et al., 2017)
Lanasyn gray (LG) 3040
Tobacco stalks (ZnCl2/microwave) Methylene blue 1264.51 (Mudyawabikwa et al., 2017)
Cassia fistula (golden shower) Methylene green 5 531 (Tran et al., 2017a, 2017b)
332
(a) (three-steps) (190
C, H2O/800
C/K2CO3/800
C) 253
(b) (two-steps) (190
C, H2O/K2CO3/800
C) 344
(c) (two-steps) (800
C/K2CO3/800
C)
(d) (one-step) (K2CO3/800
C)
Cattail biomass (850
C, N2/CO2, 800
C) Malachite green 210.18 (Yu et al., 2017)
Medical cotton (500
C, N2/H3PO4/microwave, N2) Methylene blue 476.2 (Duan et al., 2017)
Cashew nut shell (ZnCl2/400
C, N2) Methylene blue 476 (Spagnoli et al., 2017)
Persea Americana nuts (H3PO4/500
C) Methylene blue 365.6 (Regti et al., 2017b)
Rattan (Lacosperma ecundiflorum) (200
C, H2O/600
C, N2) Methylene blue 359 (Islam et al., 2017a)
Acorn shell (ZnCl2/700
C) Methylene blue 330 (Altıntıg et al., 2017)
Spent tea leaves (H3PO4/600
C, N2) Methylene blue 321 (Mahmood et al., 2017)
Pine wood sawdust (H3PO4,80
C/KOH/1000
C, N2) Methylene blue 303.03 (Zhu et al., 2017a)
Palm kernel shell (ZnCl2/500
C, N2) Methylene blue 225.3 (Garcia et al., 2017)
Karanj (Pongamia Pinnata) fruit hulls (700
C, N2/KOH/800
C, N2þCO2) Methylene blue 154.8 (Islam et al., 2017b)
Residual sludge from cellulose and paper industry (H3PO4/600
C) Methylene blue 107.1 (Orlandi et al., 2017)
Plantain peels (H2SO4/450
C, N2) Methylene blue 47.3 (Inam et al., 2017)
Jatropha curcas (ACJC) and Terminalia catappa (ACTC) Methylene blue 37.84 (ACJC) (Saheed et al., 2016)
seed Coats (500
C/NaOH/200
C) 17.44 (ACTC)
Coffee grounds (400
C, N2/KOH/800
C, N2) Methylene blue 1058 mmol/g (Laksaci et al., 2017)
Okra waste (ZnCl2/500
C) Rhodamine B 321.50 (Uner et al., 2017)
Lemon citrus peel (H3PO4/500
C) Rhodamine B (RB) 254 (Sharifzade et al., 2017)
Erythrosine B (EB) 296
Persian Mesquite Grain (H3PO4/600
C, N2) Methyl orange (MO) 66.3 (Ghasemian Lemraski et al., 2017)
Methylene blue (MB) 384
Persea species (H3PO4/500
C) Basic yellow 28 235 (Regti et al., 2017a)
Wood sawdust (500C, N2/H3PO4/900
C, N2) Xylenol orange 140 (Liu et al., 2017)
a
Unit of Qe is mg/g unless mentioned otherwise.

limits have been set up by World Health Organizations (WHO).
However, Wasana et al. (2017) suggest the possible synergistic ef-
fects of such pollutants by animal trial, and further investigations
are required to study such effects on the human body. Despite the
efficiency of adsorption in removal of contaminants from waste-
water, the use of commercial activated carbon is undesirable due to
the low affinity towards heavy metals (Sigdel et al., 2017). There-
fore, it is vital to develop other adsorbents, especially from biomass
waste, to minimize the heavy metal ions from entering the water
bodies.
Recently, the removal of Cd2þ, Pb2þ, Cu2þ, Ni2þ and Cr6þ from
aqueous solutions is given more attention than the other ions, due
to the economic values in recovery of these ions, and the high level
of hazards of these ions once released to the environment. Some
researchers are able to develop ACs with satisfactory removal
performances. A recent study indicates that the removal efficiency
of Cd2þ and Pb2þ by a commercial granular activated carbon is 17.23
and 16.84 mg/g respectively (Asuquo et al., 2017). There is a great
number of ACs from biowaste that possess higher adsorption ca-
pacity than the mentioned figures shown in Table 3. The highest
removal capacity of Cd2þ and Pb2þ was recorded for AC produced
from radical press cake obtained in petroleum refinery industry.
The high adsorption performance despite low surface area and
porosity is attributed to the modification of adsorbent surface by
oxygen-and nitrogen-containing groups during chemical
activation.
It is also necessary to study the adsorbent performance in the
presence of multiple metal ions, due to the unavoidable presence of
such ions in the industrial wastewater. The presence of interaction
effects in binary adsorption system was observed by Fatehi et al.
(2017), where the adsorption of Cr (VI) onto AC was reduced by
27% in the presence of Pb(II). The possible explanation for such
observation is the competition between Cr and Pb ions onto the
adsorption sites. The formation of hydrated ions by Cr ions with a
larger size might hinder the adsorption onto ACs, hence results in
reduced adsorption compared to Pb ions in binary solutions. The
interaction effect was also observed in the adsorption system
consisting of Pb, Cd and tetracycline (TC) (He et al., 2017). When
compared to a single component system, adsorption of TC on
adsorbent (vermicompost without activation) takes place via
different interaction, while increased adsorption for Pb and
decreased adsorption in Cd were observed. This observation is
attributed to formation of Pb-carbonate in the mixed component
systems.
A study by Aguayo-Villarreal et al. (2017) provides readers with
insights on the role of chemical activation on the adsorption
property of heavy metal ions, as well as antagonistic adsorption
effect in binary system. Their work involved synthesis of AC from
pecan nutshell (which is rich in CaCO3) by chemical activation with
different reagents (NaCl, CaCl2, KCl, CH3COOH, H2SO4, H3PO4). Two
ACs with and without physical activation (CO2) were also prepared
for comparison purpose. The use of different chemical reagents
produced distinct effects on the BET surface area, pore width and
elemental composition of the ACs. Chemical activation also
increased adsorption of several metal ions onto ACs up to 1214%
when compared to AC without physical activation. ACs prepared
with KCl and NaCl exhibited higher adsorption performances than
other AC samples, due to the large surface area and oxygenated
groups on the adsorbents. The affinities for the tested heavy metal
ions decreased in the order Cu > Zn > Ni > Cd. The role of ion ex-
change mechanism was also found, evidenced by the release of
calcium from ACs during adsorption of heavy metals, especially Cu
and Zn. Nevertheless, only physically and chemically activated ACs
showed the ion-exchange property. When the team studied binary
adsorption system using the synthesized ACs, competition of metal
ions was found to reduce the adsorbent performance. The
 S. Wong et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 175 (2018) 361e375 367

Table 3
Adsorption of metal ions and anions on adsorbents derived from biomass. (adsorbates were prepared in aqueous solutions unless otherwise mentioned).

Biomass Source Target pollutant Qe (mg/g) Ref

Loblolly pine chips (300
C, Cd2þ 167.3 (Park et al., 2017)

93% N2þ7% O2/NaOH/800
C, N2)
Corn stalk Cd2þ 32.8 (Zubrik et al., 2017)
(a) (one-step) (KOH/550
C, N2) 107.5
(b) (two-step) (550
C/N2/KOH/550
C, N2)
Radish press cake (700
C, N2/CO2/HNO3) Cd2þ 166.7 (Ribeiro et al., 2015)
Pb2þ 500.00
Typha Angustifolia (TC) and Salix matsudana Cd2þ and Pb2þ 48.08 (TC, Cd) (Tang et al., 2017)
(SM) (H3PO4/200
C/450
C) 61.73 (TC, Pb)
40.98 (SM, Cd)
58.82 (SM, Pb)
Mangrove propagule waste (600
C/H3PO4) Pb2þ 15.2 (Astuti et al., 2017)
Melia azedarach fruit (ZnCl2/500
C) Pb2þ 111.11 (Sabermahani et al., 2017)
POME (H3PO4/500
C, N2) Pb2þ 95.34 (Adebisi et al., 2017)
Zn2þ 68.49
Rice Husk (600
C/Na2CO3) Pb2þ (from car 0.6 (Hanum et al., 2017)
battery wastewater)
Banana peel (500
C/KOH/500
C) Cu2þ 14.3 (Van Thuan et al., 2017)
Ni2þ 27.4
Pb2þ 34.5
Banana peel (500
C, air/KOH/500
C, air) Cu2þ 13.24 (Van Tran et al., 2017)
Ni2þ 2.99
Pb2þ 19.3
Australian pine cones (800
C/NaOH) Cu2þ 12.82 (Muslim, 2017)
Green alga (GAAC) and brown alga (BAAC) Ni2þ 64.51 (GAAC) (Nemchi et al., 2017)
(H3PO4/750
C/air) 91.70 (BAAC)
Rice straw (ACRS) and tea waste (ACTW) Ni2þ 21.23 (ACRS) (Tran et al., 2017c)
(500
C, N2/KOH/800
C) 42.19 (ACTW)
Silkworm cocoon (500
C/KOH/900
C, Ar) Cr6þ 366.3 (Sun et al., 2017)
Fox nutshell (ZnCl2/600
C, N2) Cr6þ 43.45 (Kumar and Jena, 2017)
Macademia nutshells Cr6þ 22.3 (Pakade et al., 2017)
Rice husk Cr6þ 1.5 (Arneli et al., 2017)
(a) 400
C/H3PO4 1.5
(b) 400
C/KOH
Combretum quadrangulare Kurz. Fe2þ 15.50 (Maneechakr and Karnjanakom, 2017)
(500
C/H3PO4/500
C)

antagonistic effect of a particular ion towards another ion is
dependent on AC surface chemistry as well as the ions in the bi-
metallic system. However, no apparent trend can be found to pre-
dict the antagonistic effect, therefore it is a challenge to synthesize
a suitable AC that can achieve an effective removal of heavy metals
in multicomponent system.
3.3. Organic pollutants (in leachate and palm oil mill effluents
(POME))
Palm oil is one of the two main vegetable oils used globally
(Igwe and Onyegbado, 2007). Development of oil palm industry has
been a key economic driver in few countries, including Malaysia
and Indonesia. Malaysia accounts for 39% of the world palm oil
production (Malaysia Palm Oil Council, 2017). Despite the huge
economic benefits brought by palm oil industry, treatment of palm
oil mill effluent (POME) remains to be a challenge. POME is a by-
product from processing of oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB),
therefore it contains a high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and
biological oxygen demand (BOD). Decomposition of organic sub-
stances in POME in rivers can produce harmful compounds that
threaten the aquatic life. POME normally appears in black or
brownish slurry form with foul smell, and contains debris from the
EFB. The common practice in treatment of POME is through the
ponding system, which requires a large land area and long hy-
draulic retention time (Kaman et al., 2017). In addition, the treated
POME still contains a high level of contaminants due to the low
effectiveness of such treatment method. Thus, adsorption is often
used in polishing of treated POME prior to discharge, in order to
meet the wastewater discharge standard. There are limited studies
on the use of adsorbent derived from biomass in POME treatment,
which is shown in Table 4.
Another source of organic pollutants is the leachate generated
from municipal solid waste (MSW). Despite the proposal of several
new technologies in MSW treatment (including conversion of
waste materials to fuels and chemicals (Wong et al., 2016), incin-
eration to generate energy (Tozlu et al., 2016)), sanitary landfill is
still the most acceptable option in most countries, as it is relatively
easy to manage, requires low capital and operating cost, as well as
produces less adverse effects to the surrounding environment
when compared to other treatment methods. Nevertheless, many
are unaware of the potential hazards posed by landfills, especially
leachate, which is produced when the water content in MSW per-
colates through the waste by gravity, and causes leaching of various
organic compounds and heavy metals into the liquid. Such situation
is worsened in the presence of rainwater in the case of uncovered
landfill site. When seeped into the ground, these pollutants slowly
pollute the land and groundwater sources, rendering these re-
sources useless to humans. Therefore, leachate treatment remains
to be a significant issue in landfill management.
Landfill leachate is normally classified as high strength waste-
water, due to very high BOD, oil and grease, as well as total sus-
pended solid (TSS) (both organic and inorganic) compared to
residential strength wastewater (Shehzad et al., 2016). Neverthe-
less, technically leachate contains all the contaminants previously
discussed, due to indiscriminate dumping of solid waste practiced
in many countries. The composition of landfill leachate is influ-
enced by several key factors, including types and composition of
MSW sent to the landfill (which changes seasonally) as well as
landfill age (Zhong et al., 2017). The presence of organic matters in
368 S. Wong et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 175 (2018) 361e375

Table 4
Adsorption of organic and inorganic pollutants from landfill leachate and palm oil mill effluent POME) on adsorbents derived from biomass.

Biomass Source Target pollutants Qe (mg/g) or removal efficiency (in %) Ref

Sugarcane bagasse (700
C/KOH/600
C) COD, NH3eN and colour in leachate 94.74% (color) (Azmi et al., 2016a)
83.61% (COD)
46.65% (NH3eN)
Sugarcane bagasse (700
C, N2/KOH/687
C, N2) COD, NH3eN and colour in leachate 87.3% (color) (Azmi et al., 2015)
77.8% (COD)
41.05% (NH3eN)
Sugarcane bagasse (700
C, N2/KOH/microwave, N2) COD, NH3eN and colour in leachate 97.83% (color) (Azmi et al., 2016b)
88.14% (COD)
47.25% (NH3eN)
Sea mango (700
C, N2/KOH/microwave, N2) COD, NH3eN and colour in leachate 67.28% (color) (Shehzad et al., 2016)
68.98% (COD)
79.77% (NH3eN)
Cow dung ash (CH3COOH) COD, NH3eN and colour in leachate 79% (COD) (Kaur et al., 2016)
Banana pseudo stem (ZnCl2/761
C) COD, NH3eN and colour in leachate 88.9% (color) (Ghani et al., 2017)
85.8% (COD)
Coconut shell (steam activated) TSS, COD and colour in POME QTSS: 1.44 mg/g (39%) (Kaman et al., 2017)
QCOD: 10.2 mg/g (66%)
Qcolor: 63.3 mg/g (61%)
Coconut shell TSS, COD and colour in POME QTSS: 39.1 mg/g (39%) (Sia et al., 2017)
QCOD: 1.11 mg/g (66%)
Qcolor: 9.47 mg/g (61%)
Biosorbent from oil palm mesocarp fiber COD and suspended solid (SS) from 70% (COD) (Ibrahim et al., 2017)
(600
C/steam/600
C) palm oil mill effluent (POME) 80% (SS)

the leachate is quantified by BOD value (or more conveniently
expressed as COD value in most studies), while decomposition of
organic matters leads to deamination of amino acids, characterized
by the concentration of ammoniacal nitrogen (NH3eN). The landfill
can be regarded as a large reactor for microbial decomposition of
MSW, where acidogenic phase takes place in the first five years
(Oulego et al., 2016). The leachate produced at this stage is char-
acterized by a high COD value (above 10,000 mg/l), low pH (due to
the abundance of acid molecules), and low NH3eN. Due to the
progression of time, the landfill proceeds to methanogenic phase.
Therefore, the leachate experiences several changes, including in-
crease in pH and NH3eN values, as well as decrease of COD value
(Youcai et al., 2000). Kulikowska and Klimiuk (2008) states that
COD value for leachate in landfills older than 10 years can be lower
than 3000 mg/L. A combination of physical, chemical and biological
treatments in leachate treatment is normally needed to ensure
efficient removal of organic matters. (Hassan et al., 2016). Adsorp-
tion is suitable to remove the recalcitrant compounds that cannot
be degraded easily by biological means.
Unlike the contaminants discussed in previous sections,
leachate and POME usually contains multiple types of contami-
nants with far different physicochemical properties, such as
ammoniacal nitrogen, COD, color and metals. Contamination of
water sources by leachate and POME can be detected via visual
inspection (color change) as well as presence of foul smell and taste
of the water. Unlike industrial effluents, contamination of drinking
water by leachate takes place near solid waste disposal spots, thus
improper treatment of leachate produce immediate effects to res-
idents near to the contaminated water sources, and swift actions
are usually required to handle the pollution.
There are a limited number of studies involving the treatment of
leachate and POME in the literature, as such processes always
involve removal of multiple pollutants from the solution, which is
more challenging. The use of one-variable-at-a-time (OVAT)
method in such system can be tedious as well as time- and
resources-consuming. Response surface methodology (RSM) is
adopted in most studies to determine the optimum conditions that
maximize removal efficiencies of all pollutants studied. RSM is
widely used for experiment design and data analysis in various
research areas, such as polymer cracking (Wong et al., 2016),
wastewater treatment (Ardekani et al., 2017), biodiesel and fuel
production (Mohamad et al., 2017). High removal of COD and color
from leachate can be observed in Table 4. However, most of the
developed AC developed from biowaste is less efficient towards
removal of ammoniacal nitrogen, with only one exception (Shehzad
et al., 2016). Thus, it is necessary to develop better adsorbent that
can achieve high adsorption rate of ammoniacal nitrogen, perhaps
with modification of functional groups on adsorbents surface.
3.4. Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs)
Due to the improved healthcare service and products innovation
of PPCPs, more people are using various drugs to alleviate various
symptoms caused by sicknesses, including antibiotics, analgesics
and anti-inflammatories, as well as painkillers (Sun et al., 2015).
Nevertheless, the presence of pharmaceuticals in the wastewater is
a growing concern, as these compounds are resistant to biodegra-
dation. PPCPs are classified as emerging contaminants (EC), as there
are yet conclusive evidences that relate these compounds to
wildlife and human health under long term exposure. As PPCPs are
designed to affect human biological activities even at low concen-
trations (Ebele et al., 2017), it is necessary to gain full under-
standing on human health due to bioaccumulation effects.
Carbamazepine, naproxen, diclofenac and ibuprofen are the prior-
ity ECs that require close monitoring due to the potential detri-
mental effects to human health (Archer et al., 2017). The
contamination sources of PPCPs include hospital effluents, pro-
duction factories and household wastewater (secretion from con-
sumers’ bodies after ingestion) (Ahmed, 2017a), as well as landfills
(due to unlawful disposal of PPCPs). The recent studies on
adsorption of PPCPs onto AC synthesized from biowaste are listed in
Table 5.
As mentioned earlier in this review, most studies focused on
adsorption of single adsorbate from aqueous solution, especially
those related to dyes. When the process is extended to multi-
component systems, synergistic and antagonistic effects could be
observed, hence complicating the efforts to fully understand the
process. However, it is inevitable to involve simultaneous removal
of several contaminants, for example in POME and leachate using
RSM, which minimizes the number of experimental runs, hence
time and resources needed when compared to the OVAT method. In
addition, it is possible to determine the interaction of effects among
 S. Wong et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 175 (2018) 361e375 369

Table 5
Adsorption of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) on adsorbents derived from biomass. (adsorbates were prepared in aqueous solutions unless otherwise
mentioned).

Biomass Source Target pollutant Adsorption capacity, Qea Ref

Waste tea residue

(H3PO4/450
C/steam) Oxytetracycline 273.7 (Kan et al., 2017)
(H3PO4/450
C/air) 242.6
(H3PO4/450
C/N2) 175.0
Commercial AC (CAC) and AC from primary paper Carbamazepine (CBZ) 493 (CAC, CBZ) (Calisto et al., 2017)
mill sludge (ACPM) (800
C, N2/HCl) Paroxetine (PAR) 405 (CAC, OXZ)
Oxazepam (OXZ) 272 (CAC, PAR)
74 (CAC, ACPM)
70 (CAC, OXZ)
64 (CAC, PAR)
Date (Phoenix dactylifera L) stones (500
C/K2CO3/microwave) Ciprofloxacin (CIP) 2.094 (Darweesh and Ahmed, 2017)
Norfloxacin (NOR) 1.992
Sawdust (ZnCl2/microwave) Bisphenol A 334.28 (Thue et al., 2017)
Paracetamol 226.71
Caffeine 256.29
2-naphthol 329.00
p-nitro phenol 272.28
o-nitrophenol 294.10
Resorcinol 150.87
Hydroquinone 254.36
Peach stone (AC-PS) and rice husk (AC-RH) (H3PO4/400
C, air) Carbamazepine (CBZ) 170.3 (AC-RH,CBZ) (Alvarez-Torrellas et al., 2017b)
Ciprofloxacin (CPX) 113.0 (AC-PS, CBZ)
241.6 (AC-PS, CBZ)
263.7 (AC-PS, CBZ)
Palm kernel shell (900
C, N2þCO2) Acenolol 0.69 mmol/g (To et al., 2017)
Acebutolol 0.67 mmol/g
Carbamazepine 0.72 mmol/g
Peach stone (600
C, air/300
C, air) p-nitrophenol 234.3 (Alvarez-Torrellas et al., 2017a)
a
Unit of Qe is mg/g unless mentioned otherwise.

the process variables, and determine an optimum process condi-
tions that produce desirable process responses. The use of RSM for
adsorption in a fixed bed column also showed the desirable result
(Roy et al., 2017). The use of simulated molecular equations is
another potential solution in studying the competitive adsorption
in a multicomponent system, as reported by Bahamon et al. (2017).
3.5. Others
Adsorption of phenolic compounds onto conventional ACs, as
well as other adsorbents is well documented, however limited
studies are found for ACs derived from biowaste. dos Reis et al.
(2016) produced ACs from sewage sludge through two different
methods: (a) heating to 500
C in the presence of inert gas followed
by HCl treatment and (b) microwave heating in the presence of
inert gas followed by HCl treatment. Both absorbents possess high
adsorption capacity towards hydroquinone (1218.3 mg/g and
1202.1 mg/g respectively), possibly due to the donor-accepter
complex and p-p interactions. Physically activated banana peels
(Ingole et al., 2017) and chemically activated coffee grounds
(Laksaci et al., 2017) also display excellent phenol adsorption ca-
pacities (48.58 mg/g and 3008 mmol/g, respectively). Similar to
phenolic compounds, only few studies related to pesticides were
found in literature: removal of furadan (868.98 mg/g), metribuzin
(756.47 mg/g) and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (274.70 mg/g)
from aqueous solution by AC synthesized from bamboo (Santana
et al., 2017), as well as adsorption of Cypermethrin (31.4 mg/g)
and Chlorpyrifos (18.1 mg/g) from AC synthesized from Jatropha
curcas (Okeola et al., 2017).
4. Recent advances on adsorption of contaminants onto ACs
derived from biowaste
The use of magnetic adsorbents for removal of pollutants from
wastewater has received wide attention recently, due to many
advantages the process offers. Easy separation of the used adsor-
bent from the wastewater can be achieved after pollutants
adsorption using magnetic force. Such possibility shortens the time
needed for wastewater treatment process, hence reduces the
additional cost. In addition, magnetic force can be applied outside
the reactor, thus eliminating the possibility of water contamination
during such processes (Gomez-Pastora et al., 2017). Synthesis of
magnetic activated carbon involved treatment of the precursor
with metal-based reagent (containing Fe2þ/Fe3þ) to allow deposi-
tion of the ions on the precursor surface and inside the pores.
Subsequently, the ions are converted to Fe3O4 by NaOH and heat
treatment on the AC (Altıntıg et al., 2017). It is also possible to
synthesize magnetic hydrochar from biomass with desirable
pollutant removal property (adsorption capacity of tetracycline:
48.4 mg/g) despite a lower surface area available for adsorption
when compared to AC in a study by Rattanachueskul et al. (2017).
The superior adsorption property of magnetic hydrochar is most
probably due to the hierarchical structure and oxygen functionality
possessed. Loading of Fe3O4 also increased the surface area of the
adsorbent, as reported by Khataee et al. (2017). Thus, the devel-
opment of magnetic biochar for adsorbent and electrode is gaining
attention from researchers (Thines et al., 2017).
Modification of AC with magnetic material was also studied
extensively, as the presence of such material facilitates adsorption
of some contaminants that can hardly be removed by conventional
ACs. For instance, removal of arsenic from wastewater generated in
germanium extraction has been a challenging task due to the
presence of multicomponent system as discussed previously. In
order to tackle this challenge, Xiong et al. (2017) proposed a
strategy to tackle this challenge, which is to convert As3þ to As5þ,
followed by adsorption onto AC. During AC synthesis, straw was
carbonized at 350
C, followed by activation with KOH and heating
at 800
C. The AC was then doped with iron hydroxide and man-
ganese dioxide. Adsorption capacity recorded by the modified AC
(75.82 mg/g) is higher than most adsorbents found in literature. It is
370 S. Wong et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 175 (2018) 361e375
speculated that removal of As3þ takes place via chelating with AC
surface or iron oxide, as well as electrostatic interaction between
carboxylic/hydroxyl groups on AC and As5þ produced from oxida-
tion of As3þ. It was also discovered that the presence of germanium
ions in simulated solution, even at high concentration, does not
affect the removal of arsenic. Thus, AC doped with iron oxide and
manganese dioxide is a promising adsorbent to be used in arsenic
removal.
Introduction of metal ions onto AC is also used to overcome the
low affinity of inorganic ions on AC. Joshi and Pradhananga (2017)
demonstrated the viability of such idea by adsorption of fluoride
ion onto activated carbon from Areca nuts. In contrast to other
water pollutants, fluoride ions mostly originate from geological
sources (Zeni et al., 2005). Fluoride adsorption capacity of 4.8 mg/g
was recorded for the AC, which shows its superior property
compared to commercial AC. Another adsorbent with higher per-
formance is produced by Wendimu et al. (2017) using activated
bamboo impregnated with Al3þ and Fe3þ ions. The bamboo was
treated with AlCl3/FeCl3 solution prior to carbonization at 400
C.
Such modification was able to increase the fluoride adsorption
capacity to 21.1 mg/g when compared to unmodified adsorbent
(4.32 mg/g). These result clearly indicate the important role of
metal ions in improvement of AC adsorption towards anions.
The effect of introducing Fe2þ ions on the adsorbent towards
adsorption of chromate ions was also noticed by Maneechakr and
Karnjanakom (2017). In their work, ACs prepared from Com-
bretum quadrangulare Kurz by chemical and physical activations
have very low adsorption capacity towards Cr2O2 7 . Introduction of
Fe2þ onto the AC, however, drastically increases the adsorption
ability. Such change is attributed to the increase of positive charge
on the AC following Fe2þ introduction, which improves adsorption
of Cr2O27 onto AC by electrostatic forces. These works demonstrate
that modification of AC with suitable functional groups can be more
advantageous than increasing BET surface area of ACs in improve-
ment of adsorption performance towards specific ions. More works
are needed to explore the effect of different functional groups on
adsorbent surface in enhancing the adsorption of pollutants from
wastewater.
Most studies focus on adsorption of pollutants onto AC from
various biowaste sources, without carrying further study onto the
underlying mechanisms that control the adsorption behaviour.
Nevertheless, there is an increasing number of researches that
suggests the role of functional groups on the adsorbents surface in
enhancing its adsorption efficiency towards specific adsorbate.
When introducing the correct functional groups onto adsorbents,
large adsorption capacity can be produced. One specific example of
such study is the rice straw lignin that is capable to adsorbing
PdCl2
4 (Zhang et al., 2017a). The adsorbent was synthesized
through phenolation, polycondensation, chloration, amination and
quarterization of the biomass prior to selective adsorption of
PdCl2 2þ
4 from a mixture solution with other metals ions (Zn , Fe ,
3þ
Table 6
Application of modified AC in pollutants removal.
Adsorbent


AC and magnetic AC (Fe-AC) from acorn shell (ZnCl2/700 C/addition of Fe3O4)
Fe(OH)2/MnO2 doped on AC from straw
(350
C/HCl/doping)
Aluminium-iron-amended activated bamboo charcoal (AlCl3þFeCl3/400
C)
Fe2O3/Arena nut AC composite (H3PO4/400
C, N2/addition of Fe2O3)
Magnetic AC from Combretum quadrangulare Kurz. (500
C/H3PO4/addition of Fe)
Fe2O3 loaded on AC from plum stone
(H3PO4/500
C, N2/addition of Fe2O3)
Peganum harmala seed (800
C/HCl/ultrasonic/coating with ZnO nanoparticles)
Ni2þ, Cu2þ). The synthesis procedures enable adsorption of PdCl2 4
through coordination (with the N from primary amine and O from
alcoholic hydroxyl groups) as well as ion exchange (with the Cl
from the adsorbent). Upon comparison, adsorption capacity of this
adsorbent towards PdCl2 4 (122.49 mg/g) is higher than most ad-
sorbents found in literature, including activated carbon. Thus, this
work is expected to provide a cheaper alternative to the existing Pd
extraction methods, including chemical precipitation, solvent
extraction, ion exchange and microbiological extraction. In addi-
tion, this work demonstrates that it is possible to alter the func-
tional groups on the adsorbents to achieve selective adsorption.
The recent studies on the use of magnetic ACs are summarized in
Table 6.
5. Future direction and challenges in wastewater treatment
with ACs from biowaste
In view of the discussions above, it is clear that the adsorption of
wastewater pollutants via adsorption is receiving wide attention
from the researchers. Nevertheless, there is an emerging trend on
the use of carbonized materials and raw biowaste in wastewater
treatment, due to the several reasons. Alhashimi and Aktas (2017)
performed a meta-analysis to compare the environmental and
economic performance of biochar and AC in adsorption of heavy
metals. The analysis revealed comparable adsorption performance
of biochar to that of AC, despite smaller surface area possessed. It is
therefore rationalized that while large surface area of AC favours
pollutants adsorption by pore filling, there are other factors,
including surface functional groups that explain the adsorption
performance of biochars. On the other hand, production of AC in-
volves high environmental impact, evidenced by lower greenhouse
gases emission of biochar (0.9 kg CO2eq/kg) to that of AC (6.6 kg
CO2eq/kg). In addition, production of ACs (97 MJ/kg) requires
remarkably higher energy demand than biochar (6.1 MJ/kg). Thus,
biochar could be more favourable than AC in removal of heavy
metals from wastewater when considering the GHG emission, en-
ergy demand and subsequently production cost. While such find-
ings cannot be generalized to adsorption of other pollutants, the
result shed light on the potential applications of biochars in
wastewater treatment. Nevertheless, the research on the use of raw
biowaste and carbonized materials as absorbent is still at an early
stage, and activated carbon is expected to be the potential adsor-
bent in industrial application.
Other than searching for more efficient adsorbents from various
biowaste, researchers also intend to search for various methods
that improve adsorption performance for a particular adsorbent,
including ultrasonic irradiation. Ultrasonic irradiation also causes
cavitation, which aids the dispersion of adsorbates in the solution
(Acisli et al., 2016; Bagheri et al., 2017b). Few studies indicate the
possibility of radical formation from water molecules under ultra-
sonic irradiation, which are able to degrade dye molecules (Ghows
Target pollutant Qe (mg/g) Ref
MB 303 (AC) (Altıntıg et al., 2017)
357.1 (Fe-AC)
3þ
As 75.82 (Xiong et al., 2017)

F 21.1 (Wendimu et al., 2017)
F 4.8 (Joshi and Pradhananga, 2017)
Cr2O2-
7 1.68 (Maneechakr and Karnjanakom, 2017)
Cu2þ 48.31 (Parlayıcı and Pehlivan, 2017)
Pb 2þ
80.65
Cr6þ 74.67 (Fazlzadeh et al., 2017)
 S. Wong et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 175 (2018) 361e375
and Entezari, 2011). It is found that ultrasonic assisted adsorption is
more effective than magnetic stirrer assisted and vortex assisted
adsorption methods when the same adsorbent is used, as the ul-
trasound waves push adsorbate molecules into adsorbents’ mi-
cropores, hence enhancing the adsorption rate (Bagheri et al.,
2017a). Nevertheless, it is possible for adsorption to negatively
affect the dye adsorption equilibrium, thus experimental result is
required to justify the use of ultrasonic irradiation in an adsorption
system. Nevertheless, the use of ultrasonic irradiation in adsorption
of pollutants is still new, and there are very limited studies related
to microwave assisted adsorption of pollutants onto AC, especially
those from biowaste. This presents a research gap that need to be
filled.
As illustrated in Section 2, AC synthesis typically involves
carbonization as well as physical/chemical activation. Nevertheless,
novel methods on AC synthesis are reported with the hope to
improve their performances. A novel method involving the use of
cold oxygen plasma treatment in AC preparation was successfully
demonstrated by Kazak et al. (2017). The biowaste utilized was
vinasse originated from ethanol production industry. Carbonization
of dried and pretreated vinasse underwent pyrolysis at 1000
C in
N2 atmosphere, followed by application of cold oxygen plasma
treatment created by excitation of oxygen using radiofrequency
energy. Then, the final pyrolysis was performed with similar con-
ditions to the first pyrolysis. It is known that oxygen radicals, ions
and molecules generated in cold oxygen plasma react with sp2
hydridized C]C bonds, which lead to cracks and pore openings, as
well as introduction of oxygen containing functional groups on the
surface of carbon materials. Increase in plasma treatment time was
also found to increase the surface area at the initial stage, followed
by a decrease to reach steady-state when longer treatment time
was applied. This is attributed to the plasma etching and micro-
pores formation at initial stage, followed by destruction of the
micropores. The AC synthesized using this unconventional method
possesses extremely high adsorption capacity towards methylene
blue (909.1 mg/g), which is only lower than 968.74 mg/g as re-
ported in another study by Kumar and Jena (2016). Therefore, it is
necessary to study the potential of cold oxygen plasma treatment in
synthesis of AC from other biomass precursor.
Another innovative method in AC preparation was proposed by
Guo et al. (2017b), which involved the use of ammonia activation.
Such method is believed to reduce the chemical reagents and water
(for washing of final AC) required compared to conventional AC
preparation method. In their studies, Phragmites australis plants
were gathered from a constructed wetland, followed by washing,
drying and grounding. Ammoniation of the treated biowaste was
then carried out using three different ammoniating agents under
vacuum for 8 days. The ammoniated samples were then soaked in
phosphoric acid prior to activation (N2, 450
C, 1hr). The perfor-
mance of such ACs in adsorption of Ni (II) was compared to the
conventional AC (without ammoniation). It was observed that AC
prepared by ammoniation using urea possessed the highest Ni (II)
adsorption capacity (38.91 mg/g) compared to other ACs treated
with NH3H2O and NH4HCO3, as well as AC without ammoniation
(27.55 mg/g). Characterization of ACs indicated high BET surface
area and total pore volume than conventional AC, together with the
Table 7
Biomasses with potential in bio-oil extraction and adsorbent synthesis.
Biomass
Almost shell
Algae
Oil palm empty fruit bunch and kernel shells
Corn cob
371
presence of oxygen-containing- and nitrogen-containing functional
groups on the AC surface (Guo et al., 2017a). It is rationalized that
bonding of Ni (II) species onto protonated amine groups is the main
factor that contributed to the superior adsorption performance of
ammoniated AC. These research findings illustrate the potential of
ammonia activation method in improvement of AC properties and
adsorption performance.
Despite the extensive studies on adsorbents derived from bio-
waste, very few attempted the process performed in a fixed bed
column (Darweesh and Ahmed, 2017). Such idea was also explored
by Singh and Balomajumder (2017), which performed adsorption
and decomposition of cyanide and phenol by microorganisms
attached to AC in a fixed bed column. In view of the high potential
of biosorbents to be used in treatment of wastewater, the focus on
the future studies should be on evaluation of breakthrough curve
related to the newly developed adsorbents prior to commerciali-
zation (Tan and Hameed, 2017). Nevertheless, most studies in the
literature focus on the development of the new adsorbent from
biowaste, and less focus on column breakthrough dynamics, which
influences the potential real applications in wastewater treatment
industry.
Most of the existing research involves process design that con-
verts biowaste to AC meant for pollutant adsorption. Nevertheless,
it is possible to obtain AC precursor as by-product from oil
extraction of certain biomass. The potential of biomass as sources of
bio-oil extraction is also highlighted by many researchers,
including Zhu et al. (2017b). It is possible to invent a process that
combines bio-oil extraction and production of AC precursor in one
reaction. A potential application of such idea would be on rice
straw, which can be pyrolyzed to produce bio-oil (Tran et al.,
2017c). The potential of rice straw to be converted to adsorbent,
on the other hand, is discussed in several works (Biswas et al.,
2017). Thus, pyrolysis serves as a method to extract oil from the
biomass, and heat source for carbonization of biomass at the same
time. A combination of both processes in one reaction would result
in great savings of energy, time and cost related to the processes.
Such concept can also be applied to other biomasses, which are
found to be potential sources of bio-oil extraction and also adsor-
bent synthesis, as shown in Table 7. However, there are no studies
that focus on both aspects for the mentioned biomasses in the
literature, therefore it is worthy to study on possibility to perform a
single reaction on these biomasses to obtain bio-oil and carbonized
AC precursor.
In studies involving batch adsorption, it is inevitable to involve
modelling of the experimental data to obtain kinetic, isotherm and
thermodynamic data. The data obtained sheds light on the nature
of adsorption process, and one of the most wanted properties is the
type of interaction between adsorbent and adsorbate (phys-
isorption/chemisorption). Nevertheless, the abuse of certain kinetic
models was pointed out by Tan and Hameed (2017). In most
studies, pseudo-first order (PFO) and pseudo-second order (PSO)
models (which are supposed to prove the nature of adsorption by
chemisorption) are able to fit the kinetic data in most adsorption
experiments with a satisfactorily high R2 value (which proves the
high adequacy of the model). Such confusion arises due to the
mathematical aspect of the models that enables it to fit most
Adsorbent synthesis Bio-oil production
(Fatehi et al., 2017) (Onal et al., 2017)
(Daneshvar et al., 2017) (Gao et al., 2017)
(Foo and Hameed, 2012; Garcia et al., 2017) (Khatun et al., 2017)
(Tharaneedhar et al., 2017) (Ravikumar et al., 2017)
372 S. Wong et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 175 (2018) 361e375
experimental data regardless to the nature of adsorption process.
Due to such seemingly satisfactory convenient result, most re-
searchers tend to neglect the theoretical background of the models,
and make the use of PFO and PSO models a standard routine in
kinetic modelling. On the other hand, efforts to explore the true
nature of adsorption often result in fitting of kinetic data to large
numbers of models, which may involve iterative calculations that is
less appealing to researchers. Ultimately, the true nature of the
adsorption process is masked behind the contradictory modelling
results that neglect the underlying adsorbate-adsorbent behaviour.
Thus, challenges remain in scaling up the reaction to commercial
application, especially in reactor design.
It is possible to recover the precious metals from wastewater by
adsorption, although such possibility is less studied in the litera-
ture. In a study by Tang et al. (2017), ACs were prepared from
T. augustifolia and S. matsudana for adsorption of Pb and Cd.
Regeneration of ACs were performed by HCl treatment for 12 h after
adsorption of Pb and Cd. Such steps were found to promote
desorption of Cd and Pb adsorbed onto the ACs. Thus, the recovery
of metals from the wastewater can be achieved. Nevertheless, the
recovery rate is less than 100% as some of the adsorbed species
remained attached to the ACs. Recovery percentage of the metals
were also found to decrease with subsequent use in adsorption/
desorption cycle, therefore more through research is needed to gain
further insight on the possibility. The research into recovery of
precious metals (such as gold, copper) from the wastewater can be
rewarding, provided suitable biomass can be found with desirable
adsorption and desorption properties.
6. Conclusions and recommendations for further studies
Removal of contaminants from wastewater is vital to ensure
availability of clean drinking water. ACs derived from biowaste is an
adsorbent with high potential to replace commercial ACs in
wastewater treatment, due to the low cost of the precursor. A large
number of recent studies on biowaste-derived-ACs focused on
adsorption of dyes and heavy metal ions from simulated effluents.
Great improvement of chemically activated ACs is widely reported
by researchers, and more evidences are required to verify the in-
fluence of multi-steps activation of ACs precursor on ACs’ adsorp-
tion capacities. More investigation is needed to determine the
performance of these ACs in the removal of pharmaceutical and
personal care products (PPCPs), organic and inorganic pollutants in
POME and landfill leachate, pesticides and phenolics from waste-
water. This short review highlights the current technologies in
adsorbent preparation and adsorption study, including develop-
ment of magnetic materials and/or nanoparticles onto ACs. Several
challenges related to the use of ACs in wastewater treatment are
also identified and discussed, including (i) higher environment
impacts possessed by ACs when compared to biochars derived from
biowaste; (ii) the use of ultrasonic irradiation in adsorption pro-
cess; (iii) collection of reactor design data through adsorption study
in fixed bed column; (iv) the use of pyrolysis to extract bio-oil and
produce ACs precursor simultaneously; (v) effective recovery of
precious metals from wastewater through adsorption. Solutions to
these challenges will certainly lead to large scale applications of the
ACs from renewable sources in wastewater treatment industry.
Acknowledgement
The main author of this paper, Wong Syie Luing, expresses his
gratitude for the support from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia in the
form of PostDoctoral Fellowship Scheme for the Project “Catalytic
Cracking of Low Density Polyethylene Waste to Liquid Fuels in Fixed
Bed Reactor”.
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