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Prof. Jang Min’s Research Team (Department of Environmental Engineering) Removes Mercury in Water...

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  • 2021-11-18
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Prof. Jang Min’s Research Team (Department of Environmental Engineering) Removes Mercury in Water With Activated Carbon Based on Sulfur-Enriched Coconut Shell Waste

 

장민 교수 연구팀

[Professor Jang Min's research team]

 

Professor Jang Min’s research team (Department of Environmental Engineering) of the university’s research professor Yoon So-yeon (first author) and research professor Jong Cho-eun (corresponding author) of the university’s research team (Department of Environmental Engineering) supported sulfide in palm shell waste activated carbon to effectively remove mercury in water and developed a method to remove it. The results were published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials (IF: 9.038, JCR top 3%), a scientific journal in the field of environmental science.

 

Mercury is a highly toxic heavy metal that is mainly exposed to the environment through anthropogenic activities such as metal processing or mining. In general, the treatment of mercury-contaminated water using the existing water treatment technology is considered one of the difficulties due to the low removal efficiency. In particular, in the case of inorganic mercury present in contaminated groundwater, it is possible to convert it to organic mercury, which is more toxic by microorganisms that grow naturally in the soil and groundwater, so it is inevitable to develop a new treatment technology that is economical and has high purification efficiency.

 

Activated carbon is a representative adsorbent used in the fields of air and water treatment due to its porous structure, large surface area, abundant oxygen functional groups, and excellent conductivity. Coconut waste-based activated carbon is produced from Palm Kernal Shell, one of the mass-produced biomass in Southeast Asia. The research team has been continuously conducting research on reducing various types of organic and inorganic pollutants using coconut shell waste-based activated carbon.

 

Prof. Jang Min 's research team improved the adsorption and removal ability of mercury by supporting sulfide on coconut shell waste-based activated carbon. Sulfide can effectively reduce dissolved heavy metals in water by forming insoluble and stable metal sulfides with heavy metals such as mercury. In this study, the effect of the sulfide precursor material and the sulfur loading ratio on the mercury adsorption capacity of the sulfide-supported coconut shell waste-based activated carbon was confirmed, and it was confirmed that it showed excellent adsorption capacity and stability regardless of the pH and ionic strength of the solution.

 

According to the results of this study, activated carbon based on sulfur-containing coconut shell waste is effective in removing dissolved mercury in groundwater, and when it is developed as an appropriate technology for large-scale water treatment in the future, it can greatly contribute to the improvement of public health in underdeveloped countries suffering from mercury-contaminated groundwater.

 

장민 교수 연구이미지

[Mechanism of in situ mercury purification by activated carbon based on sulfur-supported coconut shell waste]

 

Meanwhile, this research was carried out as a project supported by the Ministry of Environment (Grant 2020002470002), and the research results were published in the online edition of the scientific journal Journal of Hazardous Materials (IF: 9.038) on September 5, 2021 “Sulfur-anchored palm shell waste-based activated carbon for ultrahigh sorption of Hg(II) for in-situ groundwater treatment”.

 

Web link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.125995

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