548 © IWA Publishing 2018 Water Science & Technology | 77.

2 | 2018

Adsorption of nitrate onto biochar derived from

agricultural residuals
Haihua Zhao, Yingwen Xue, Li Long and Xiaolan Hu

ABSTRACT

To develop low-cost adsorbents for aqueous nitrate, biochars were prepared from three types of Haihua Zhao
School of Civil Engineering,
agricultural residuals at different pyrolysis temperatures (300
C, 450
C, and 600
C). The corncob Hubei Engineering University,
Xiaogan, Hubei,
biochar produced at 600
C (CC600) was the best nitrate adsorbent of all the tested biochars. China

Characterization results showed that CC600 had good thermal stability, porous structure, and Yingwen Xue (corresponding author)
abundant surface functional groups. Findings from batch adsorption experiments demonstrated that Li Long
Xiaolan Hu
CC600 showed relatively fast adsorption kinetics to nitrate in aqueous solutions. In addition, the School of Civil Engineering,
Wuhan University,
Langmuir adsorption capacity of CC600 to nitrate was 14.46 mg/g, comparable to that of other Wuhan,
China
biochar-based adsorbents. Therefore, CC600 showed promising potential to be used as a low-cost E-mail: ywxue@whu.edu.cn
adsorbent for the treatment of nitrate in water.
Key words | carbon sorbents, modeling, nitrogen, sorption, water treatment

INTRODUCTION

With the rapid population growth and economy develop-
ment, a large amount of nitrate has been released into
surface water and groundwater through various ways
(Burow et al. ; Archna et al. ; Kim et al. ).
This has resulted in a number of environment problems,
especially water eutrophication (Liu et al. ; Archna
et al. ). Nitrate polluted water can also pose a threat to
public health, such as causing cancer (Camargo & Alonso
; Song et al. ), infant methemoglobinemia (Camargo
& Alonso ; Wongsanit et al. ), and nervous tissues
and cognition damage (Lefferts et al. ). The develop-
ment of effective treatment technologies that can reduce
nitrate from wastewater discharges thus has attracted
much attention recently (Liu et al. ).
Due to the good stability and high water solubility of
nitrate, how to effectively and economically remove aqu-
eous nitrate nitrogen becomes an issue (Archna et al.
). To resolve it, many researchers have carried out exper-
iments to test different biological and physicochemical
methods for the removal of nitrate from aqueous solutions.
The main principle of biological nitrate removal is using
anaerobic denitrifying bacteria to reduce nitrate and nitrite
under anaerobic conditions. This biological treatment has
several advantages, such as wide sources of denitrifying bac-
teria, low cost of the process, and no secondary pollution to
doi: 10.2166/wst.2017.568
the environment. However, it also has too many restrictions
and often fails to achieve the ideal removal efficiency of
nitrate. In particular, biological methods have limitations
for the treatment of high concentration nitrate wastewater
at low temperatures (Demiral & Gunduzoglu ).
Compared with biological methods, physicochemical
methods, such as ion exchange, electro dialysis, reverse
osmosis, and adsorption, are more flexible and effective
(Chatterjee & Woo ). Among the different physico-
chemical methods, adsorption has received extensive
attention because its low cost and easy maintenance. Adsor-
bents with large specific surface area and pore volume thus
have been developed for the removal of impurity ions from
water. Recently, the development of novel, high efficiency,
and environmentally friendly adsorbents has become one
of hot topics in the field of water treatment. As an emerging
engineered carbon material, biochar has been gradually
applied as a low-cost adsorbent in water treatment to
remove contaminants from wastewater (Yao et al. b;
Lou et al. ).
Previous studies have examined the sorption of nitrate
onto biochars made from various agricultural and forest
residuals including pine wood, bamboo, wheat straw, mus-
tard straw, corn stover, and sugarcane bagasse (Mizuta
et al. ; Mishra & Patel ; Yao et al. b; Zhang

Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/wst/article-pdf/77/2/548/243217/wst077020548.pdf

by guest
on 05 November 2018
 549 H. Zhao et al. | Adsorption of nitrate onto biochar
et al. ; Chintala et al. ; Xue et al. ). These exper-
iment results show various results of effectiveness of
biochar-based sorbents for the removal of aqueous nitrate.
Nevertheless, some the biochars showed better nitrate sorp-
tion ability than commercial activated carbon, indicating the
promising potentials of biochar as a low-cost and environ-
mentally friendly sorbent for nitrate treatment.
The overarching objective of this work was to further
evaluate the effectiveness of biochar as an adsorbent for
the removal of aqueous nitrate. Various types of biochars
were prepared from three types of agricultural residuals
through slow pyrolysis at different temperatures. Laboratory
batch sorption and mathematical models were used to deter-
mine the sorption characteristics of nitrate onto the
biochars. The specific objectives of this work were as fol-
lows: (1) optimize the production conditions of biochars
from agricultural residuals; (2) determine the adsorption
characteristics of nitrate onto biochars; and (3) explore the
adsorption mechanism of nitrate onto biochar.
METHODS
Materials
Dry agriculture residuals were obtained locally from Wuhan
in Hubei Province in China. Potassium nitrate (KNO3) was
purchased from Sinopharm Chemical Reagent Co., Ltd.
Reagent in this work were of analytical grades and solutions
were prepared using deionized water (18.2 MΩ).
Biochar production
Three types of agriculture residuals, corncobs (CC), peanut
shell (PS), and cotton stalks (CS), were collected as feed-
stock materials for biochar production. They were milled,
washed, and air-dried at 80
C (Gao et al. ). The feed-
stocks were then pyrolyzed in a tube furnace under N2
flow at a temperature of 300
C, 450
C, or 600
C for 2 h,
respectively (Yao et al. a). The solid product (biochar)
was collected and ground in a mortar with a pestle, and
then sieved to a uniform size fraction of 0.9–1.2 mm. After
further rinsing with deionized (DI) water several times to
remove impurities and drying at 80
C (Creamer et al.
), the final biochar samples were stored for later exper-
iments. The samples were named after their feedstock and
temperature. For example, the biochar prepared from CC
and pyrolyzed at 600
C was named CC600.
Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/wst/article-pdf/77/2/548/243217/wst077020548.pdf
by guest
on 05 November 2018
Water Science & Technology | 77.2 | 2018
Characterizations
Basic physical and chemical properties of biochars were
determined using method reported previously (Inyang
et al. ; Yao et al. a; Wang et al. ). Briefly,
carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), and nitrogen (N) con-
tents of the samples were analyzed using a CHN Elemental
Analyzer (Elementar Analysen systeme GmbH). Surface
morphology of the samples was determined using a scan-
ning electron microscopy (SEM). X-ray diffraction (XRD)
analysis was used to detect crystalline minerals on either
pre-or post-sorption samples using a computer controlled
X-ray diffract meter. Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR)
analysis was used to verify the presence of surface functional
groups on the samples. In the thermogravimetric analysis
(TGA), the physical and chemical changes in the combus-
tion process of a microcomputer based thermogravimetric
differential thermal analyzer (HCT-1).
Batch sorption
About 0.1 g of the selected biochars were mixed with 50 mL
sodium nitrate solutions (Xue et al. ). The mixtures were
then shaken in the mechanical shaker (150 r/min) at 30
C.
After 24 h (predetermined equilibrium time), the mixtures
were filed through 0.22 μm membrane filters to measure
the nitrate concentrations in the supernatants. Nitrate con-
centrations were determined by ion chromatograph
(Metrohm) using ion chromatographic column (Metrosep
A Supp 4). Sorbed nitrate concentrations on the biochar
and removal rate were calculated based on the difference
between the initial and final aqueous concentrations. Nitrate
adsorption amount of q (mg/g) and adsorption removal rate
of R (%) were calculated by formula (1.1) and formula (1.2):
(C0  Ce )V
q¼ (1:1)
m
C0  Ce
R¼ × 100 (1:2)
C0
where V is the volume of solution (mL) and m is the weight
of biochar adsorbent, and C0 and Ce are the initial concen-
tration and equilibrium concentration of nitrate ion
solution, respectively (mg/L).
The biochar sample with the best sorption performance
for nitrate was selected for the rest of the batch sorption
experiments to determine the adsorption kinetics and iso-
therms using similar experimental procedures. The kinetics
 550 H. Zhao et al. | Adsorption of nitrate onto biochar Water Science & Technology | 77.2 | 2018

were measured at different time intervals (0–24 h) and iso- After 24 h shaking in the mechanical shaker, the same pro-
therm was determined using different initial concentration cedures were then used to determine the nitrate
(0–2,000 mg/L). concentrations in the filtrates.

Mathematical models
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, and Elovich
models were used to simulate the adsorption kinetics data.
Effects of pyrolysis conditions on nitrate adsorption
Governing equations for these models can be written as
onto biochar
(Yao et al. b):
The C, H, and N contents of the biochars showed variations
Pseudo-first-order: qt ¼ qe (1  ek1 t ) (2:1)
among different feedstocks and temperatures (Table 1). For
k2 q2e t the same feedstocks, biochars produced at higher tempera-
Pseudo-second-order: qt ¼ (2:2)
1 þ k2 q2e t tures had higher C content, which is consistent with
findings of previous studies (Sun et al. ). The H content
1
Elovich: qt ¼ ln (αβt þ 1) (2:3) of the biochars increased first and then decreased with
β
temperature, which is also consistent with the conclusions
where qt and qe are the amount of sorbate removed at time t of previous studies (Xue et al. ; Zhang et al. ; Liu
and at equilibrium (mg/g), respectively. k1 and k2 are the et al. ). Both feedstock type and pyrolysis temperature
first-order and second-order sorption rate constants (h1), showed strong effects on biochars’ sorption ability to NO 3
respectively. α is the initial sorption rate (mg/g) and β is in aqueous solutions (Figure 1). The CC and crop waste
the desorption constant (g/mg). (CW) biochars showed higher sorption to nitrate than the
The Langmuir and Freundlich models were used to PS biochars, indicating they are better feedstocks for this
simulate the adsorption isotherms. Their governing purpose. In addition, nitrate sorption abilities of the CC
equations can be written as (Tian et al. ): and CW biochars increased with pyrolysis temperature.
The CC600 showed the highest sorption of nitrate from aqu-
KSmax Ce
Langmuir: qe ¼ (3:1) eous solution among all the tested biochars, it was thus
1 þ KCe
selected as an example for further characterization and sorp-
Freundlich: qe ¼ Kf Ce1=n (3:2) tion investigations.

where K and Kf are the Langmuir bonding term related to

Physiochemical properties of CC600
interaction energies(L/mg) and the Freundlich affinity coef-
ficient ((mg/g)(1/mg)1/n), respectively. Smax is the Langmuir
The combustion process of CC600 showed three stages:
maximum capacity(mg/g), Ce is the equilibrium solution
dehydration, weight loss, and burnout (Figure 2(a)). The
concentration(mg/L) of the sorbate, and n is the Freundlich
linearity constant. The Langmuir model assumes monolayer
adsorption onto a homogeneous surface with no inter- Table 1 | CHN contents of the biochars

actions between the adsorbed molecules. The Freundlich

Biochar samples C (%) H (%) N (%)
model is an empirical equation commonly used for hetero-
CW300 68.11 3.079 0.832
geneous surface.
CW450 73.85 5.554 1.135
Effects of sorbent dosage, pH, temperature and CW600 84.19 2.842 0.878
co-existing anions CC300 75.91 3.631 0.285
CC450 81.80 4.013 0.358
The effect of adsorbent dosage was studied by adding differ- CC600 79.69 3.632 0.599
ent amounts of biochar (0.05 g, 0.10 g, 0.15 g, 0.20 g) to PS300 69.27 2.509 1.686
50 mL nitrate solution. At the dosage of 0.10 g to 50 mL sol- PS450 77.12 5.065 1.896
ution, pH (3–11), temperature (20–40
C) and co-existing
PS600 82.44 2.401 1.425
anions (Cl, SO2 3
4 , PO4 ) were determined respectively.

Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/wst/article-pdf/77/2/548/243217/wst077020548.pdf

by guest
on 05 November 2018
 551 H. Zhao et al. | Adsorption of nitrate onto biochar
Figure 1 | Removal of nitrate from aqueous solution by different types of biochars.
first stage was from room temperature to 300
C, where ther-
mogravimetric (TG) curve showed small decline and the
sample weight loss rate was only about 2%, mainly for the
dehydration process. The second stage accompanied with a
main weightlessness from 300 to 750
C, mainly for volatile
and fixed carbon combustion. The third stage was from 750
to 1,000
C, where TG curve became smooth and the quality
of the sample picked up slightly. This was probably because
the same chemical composition had different crystal type
with the temperature changing, so there was a crystal
form of inorganic transformation. In other words, a small
amount of stable compound was generated at the high temp-
erature. SEM image of the CC600 showed porous structures
with rough surfaces (Figure 2(b)). The average pore size of
Figure 2 | TGA (a), SEM (b), FTIR (c), and XRD (d) analyses of CC600.
Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/wst/article-pdf/77/2/548/243217/wst077020548.pdf
by guest
on 05 November 2018
Water Science & Technology | 77.2 | 2018
CC600 was about 30 μm. The relatively large pores would
be beneficial for the adsorption process. The FTIR spectra
of CC600 showed strong peaks 1,100 cm1 and 3,400 cm1
(Figure 2(c)), corresponding to C-O stretching vibration
(three hydroxyl) and O-H stretching vibration (hydroxyl).
The FTIR results indicated that the main functional group
on the biochar surface was hydroxyl (-OH), which has
strong affinity to polar compounds in water. Compared
with the initial biochar after adsorption there were peak
shifts at 1,100 cm1 and 3,400 cm1 and these shifts indi-
cated that functional groups involved in the adsorption. The
XRD spectra showed no evidence of diffraction peaks,
suggesting CC600 might not have any crystal lattice structure
on its surface.
Adsorption kinetics and isotherms
Nitrate adsorption kinetics onto CC600 showed two distinct
phases: a rapid initial phase over the first few hours and a
slow phase to reach maximum (Figure 3(a)). For the nitrate,
nearly all the sorption occurred within the first several
hours. Pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, and Elovich
models were used to simulate the sorption kinetics data
(Figure 3(a)). Nitrate sorption onto CC600 were best fitted
by the pseudo-second-order with R2 equal to 0.94
 552 H. Zhao et al. | Adsorption of nitrate onto biochar Water Science & Technology | 77.2 | 2018

Figure 3 | Adsorption kinetics (a) and isotherms (b) of nitrate onto CC600.


Table 2 | Best-fit kinetic parameters of NO3 adsorption onto CC600

P. first-order kinetic model P. second-order kinetic model Weber-Morris model Elovich kinetic model

1 0.5
Adsorbent qe (mg/g) k1 (h ) R2 qe (mg/g) k2 (g/mg min) R2 K (mg/g/h ) C (mg/g) R2 α (mg/g) β (g/mg) R2

CC600 6.4 0.381 0.886 7.1 0.079 0.940 1.3053 1.4245 0.838 12.933 0.7874 0.926

(Table 2). The experimental value of qe was almost identical
to the model-predicted value. The pseudo-second-order
model assumes that the adsorption rate is controlled by
the chemical adsorption mechanism that involves the elec-
tron sharing or electron transfer between the adsorbent
and adsorbate. The model results of this work suggested
that the adsorption kinetics of nitrate onto CC600 might
be mainly controlled by the chemical adsorption (Ozacar
& Sengil ). According to the Weber-Morris model, C
was 1.4245 and it indicated that intra particular diffusion
played a little role in the adsorption process.
Adsorption isotherms of nitrate onto CC600 showed
relatively high equilibrium concentrations (Figure 3(b)).
Two commonly used isotherm equations were used to
describe the experimental isotherm, which is better fitted
by the Langmuir model with R2 equal to 0.968 (Table 3).
The Langmuir maximum sorption capacity of CC600 to
nitrate was 14.46 mg/g, comparable to the values reported
in the literature on other biochar-based adsorbents (Mizuta
et al. ; Mishra & Patel ; Yao et al. b; Zhang
et al. ; Chintala et al. ; Xue et al. ). This result

Table 3 | Best-fit isotherm parameters NO3 adsorption onto CC600
Langmuir isotherm Freundlich isotherm
K qm Kf
Adsorbent (L/mg) (mg/g) R2 (mg/g)(1/mg)1/n
CC600 0.0014 14.46 0.968 0.249
confirmed that CC600 was good adsorbent for the removal
of nitrate from water.
Effects of sorbent dosage, pH, temperature and
co-existing anions
The removal rate increased with increasing biochar dose
(Figure 4(a)). The adsorption capacity increased from
5.56 mg/g to 7.74 mg/g when the biochar dose went from
0.05 g to 0.20 g.
Changes of initial solution pH significantly affected
adsorption effect (Figure 4(b)). When the pH increased, the
adsorption capacity decreased. This is probably because
when there were low pH (3–7) and high concentration of
Hþ in the solution, a large number of Hþ attached to the bio-
char surface that was favorable to electrostatic adsorption. As
the pH is over 7, there was a competition between OH and
NO 3 , which led to the reduction of adsorption capacity.
When the reaction temperature increased from 20
C to


40 C, the adsorption increased from 5.83 mg/g to 7.59 mg/g
(Figure 4(c)). This indicates that the adsorption process was
endothermic and the increase of temperature was beneficial
to the reaction. This made a great contribution to actual pro-
duction application.
According to the test data (Figure 4(d)), the existence of
three anions showed negative effect on the adsorption and
n R2
even resulted in desorption (Figure 4(d)). Relatively speak-
ing, the influence of SO2 4 and PO3
4 on adsorption were
0.503 0.917 
higher than that of Cl . It is probably because the adsorption

Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/wst/article-pdf/77/2/548/243217/wst077020548.pdf

by guest
on 05 November 2018
 553 H. Zhao et al. | Adsorption of nitrate onto biochar
Figure 4 | Effect of sorbent dosage (a), pH (b), temperature (c) and co-existing anions (d) on nitrate adsorption onto CC600.
affinity of the high valence anion was generally higher than
that of the low valence anion.
CONCLUSIONS
A range of biochars were produced from three types of agri-
cultural residuals at three pyrolysis temperatures. Among
them, CC600 had the best adsorption performance for aqu-
eous nitrate with the Langmuir adsorption capacity of
14.46 mg/g. This biochar showed good thermal stability,
porous structure, and abundant surface functional groups
and thus had promising potential to be used as a low-cost
adsorbent for the removal of nitrate from aqueous solutions.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was partially supported by the National ‘Twelfth
Five-Year’ Plan for Science & Technology Pillar Program
Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/wst/article-pdf/77/2/548/243217/wst077020548.pdf
by guest
on 05 November 2018
Water Science & Technology | 77.2 | 2018
[grant number 2014BAL04B04], [grant number
2015BAL01B02], Scientific Research Fund Project In
Hubei Province Department Of Education (B2016180),
and the Wuhan Water Engineering & Technology Co. Ltd.
The authors also thank the anonymous reviewers for their
invaluable insight and helpful suggestions.
REFERENCES
Archna, Sharma, S. K. & Sobti, R. C.  Nitrate removal from
ground water: a review. E-Journal of Chemistry 9 (4), 1667–
1675.
Burow, K. R., Nolan, B. T., Rupert, M. G. & Dubrovsky, N. M. 
Nitrate in groundwater of the United States, 1991-2003.
Environmental Science & Technology 44 (13), 4988–4997.
Camargo, J. A. & Alonso, A.  Ecological and toxicological
effects of inorganic nitrogen pollution in aquatic ecosystems: a
global assessment. Environment International 32 (6), 831–849.
Chatterjee, S. & Woo, S. H.  The removal of nitrate from
aqueous solutions by chitosan hydrogel beads. Journal of
Hazardous Materials 164 (2–3), 1012–1018.
 554 H. Zhao et al. | Adsorption of nitrate onto biochar
Chintala, R., Mollinedo, J., Schumacher, T. E., Papiernik, S. K., Malo,
D. D., Clay, D. E., Kumar, S. & Gulbrandson, D. W.  Nitrate
sorption and desorption in biochars from fast pyrolysis.
Microporous and Mesoporous Materials 179, 250–257.
Creamer, A. E., Gao, B. & Wang, S. S.  Carbon dioxide
capture using various metal oxyhydroxide-biochar
composites. Chemical Engineering Journal 283, 826–832.
Demiral, H. & Gunduzoglu, G.  Removal of nitrate from
aqueous solutions by activated carbon prepared from sugar
beet bagasse. Bioresource Technology 101 (6), 1675–1680.
Gao, F., Xue, Y. W., Deng, P. Y., Cheng, X. R. & Yang, K. 
Removal of aqueous ammonium by biochars derived from
agricultural residuals at different pyrolysis temperatures.
Chemical Speciation and Bioavailability 27 (2), 92–97.
Inyang, M., Gao, B., Pullammanappallil, P., Ding, W. &
Zimmerman, A. R.  Biochar from anaerobically digested
sugarcane bagasse. Bioresource Technology 101 (22), 8868–
8872.
Kim, K. H., Yun, S. T., Mayer, B., Lee, J. H., Kim, T. S. & Kim,
H. K.  Quantification of nitrate sources in groundwater
using hydrochemical and dual isotopic data combined with a
Bayesian mixing model. Agriculture Ecosystems &
Environment 199, 369–381.
Lefferts, W. K., Hughes, W. E., White, C. N., Brutsaert, T. D. &
Heffernan, K. S.  Effect of acute nitrate supplementation
on neurovascular coupling and cognitive performance in
hypoxia. Applied Physiology Nutrition and Metabolism
41 (2), 133–141.
Liu, A. G., Ming, J. H. & Ankumah, R. O.  Nitrate
contamination in private wells in rural Alabama, United
States. Science of the Total Environment 346 (1-3), 112–120.
Liu, Z., Xue, Y., Gao, F., Cheng, X. & Yang, K.  Removal of
ammonium from aqueous solutions using alkali-modified
biochars. Chemical Speciation & Bioavailability 28 (1–4),
26–32.
Lou, K. Y., Rajapaksha, A. U., Ok, Y. S. & Chang, S. X. 
Pyrolysis temperature and steam activation effects on sorption
of phosphate on pine sawdust biochars in aqueous solutions.
Chemical Speciation and Bioavailability 28 (1–4), 42–50.
Mishra, P. C. & Patel, R. K.  Use of agricultural waste for the
removal of nitrate-nitrogen from aqueous medium. Journal of
Environmental Management 90 (1), 519–522.
Mizuta, K., Matsumoto, T., Hatate, Y., Nishihara, K. & Nakanishi,
T.  Removal of nitrate-nitrogen from drinking water
using bamboo powder charcoal. Bioresource Technology
95 (3), 255–257.
Ozacar, M. & Sengil, I. A.  Adsorption of reactive dyes on
calcined alunite from aqueous solutions. Journal of
Hazardous Materials 98 (1–3), 211–224.
Song, P., Wu, L. & Guan, W. X.  Dietary nitrates, nitrites, and
nitrosamines intake and the risk of gastric cancer: a meta-
analysis. Nutrients 7 (12), 9872–9895.
Sun, Y., Gao, B., Yao, Y., Fang, J., Zhang, M., Zhou, Y., Chen, H.
& Yang, L.  Effects of feedstock type, production
First received 11 May 2017; accepted in revised form 27 October 2017. Available online 9 November 2017
Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/wst/article-pdf/77/2/548/243217/wst077020548.pdf
by guest
on 05 November 2018
Water Science & Technology | 77.2 | 2018
method, and pyrolysis temperature on biochar and hydrochar
properties. Chemical Engineering Journal 240, 574–578.
Tian, Y. A., Gao, B. & Ziegler, K. J.  High mobility of SDBS-
dispersed single-walled carbon nanotubes in saturated and
unsaturated porous media. Journal of Hazardous Materials
186 (2–3), 1766–1772.
Wang, H. Y., Gao, B., Wang, S. S., Fang, J., Xue, Y. W. & Yang, K.
 Removal of Pb(II), Cu(II), and Cd(II) from aqueous
solutions by biochar derived from KMnO4 treated hickory
wood. Bioresource Technology 197, 356–362.
Wongsanit, J., Teartisup, P., Kerdsueb, P., Tharnpoophasiam, P. &
Worakhunpiset, S.  Contamination of nitrate in
groundwater and its potential human health: a case study of
lower Mae Klong river basin, Thailand. Environmental
Science and Pollution Research 22 (15), 11504–11512.
Xue, Y. W., Gao, B., Yao, Y., Inyang, M., Zhang, M., Zimmerman,
A. R. & Ro, K. S.  Hydrogen peroxide modification
enhances the ability of biochar (hydrochar) produced from
hydrothermal carbonization of peanut hull to remove
aqueous heavy metals: batch and column tests. Chemical
Engineering Journal 200, 673–680.
Xue, L. H., Gao, B., Wan, Y. S., Fang, J. N., Wang, S. S., Li, Y. C.,
Munoz-Carpena, R. & Yang, L. Z.  High efficiency
and selectivity of MgFe-LDH modified wheat-straw
biochar in the removal of nitrate from aqueous solutions.
Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers 63,
312–317.
Yao, Y., Gao, B., Inyang, M., Zimmerman, A. R., Cao, X. D.,
Pullammanappallil, P. & Yang, L. Y. a Biochar derived
from anaerobically digested sugar beet tailings:
characterization and phosphate removal potential.
Bioresource Technology 102 (10), 6273–6278.
Yao, Y., Gao, B., Inyang, M., Zimmerman, A. R., Cao, X. D.,
Pullammanappallil, P. & Yang, L. Y. b Removal of
phosphate from aqueous solution by biochar derived from
anaerobically digested sugar beet tailings. Journal of
Hazardous Materials 190 (1–3), 501–507.
Yao, Y., Gao, B., Chen, H., Jiang, L. J., Inyang, M., Zimmerman, A.
R., Cao, X. D., Yang, L. Y., Xue, Y. W. & Li, H. a
Adsorption of sulfamethoxazole on biochar and its impact on
reclaimed water irrigation. Journal of Hazardous Materials
209, 408–413.
Yao, Y., Gao, B., Zhang, M., Inyang, M. & Zimmerman, A. R.
b Effect of biochar amendment on sorption and leaching
of nitrate, ammonium, and phosphate in a sandy soil.
Chemosphere 89 (11), 1467–1471.
Zhang, M., Gao, B., Yao, Y., Xue, Y. W. & Inyang, M. 
Synthesis of porous MgO-biochar nanocomposites for
removal of phosphate and nitrate from aqueous solutions.
Chemical Engineering Journal 210, 26–32.
Zhang, M., Gao, B., Fang, J., Creamer, A. E. & Ullman, J. L. 
Self-assembly of needle-like layered double hydroxide (LDH)
nanocrystals on hydrochar: characterization and phosphate
removal ability. RSC Advances 4 (53), 28171–5.