Heat-treated wood as chromium adsorption material

Heavy metals adsorption with lignocellulosic materials has been heavily researched in the last years. Since heat activation has been used with good results to increase the adsorption capacity of some materials, heat-treated wood might be a better adsorbent. This hypothesis is the basis of the present study. The adsorption tests were made with powdered pine wood, heat-treated at 190–210 °C. All the heat-treated samples showed a significantly higher adsorption compared to untreated wood. The maximum adsorption was obtained at pH 3 for heat-treated wood at 210 °C. The kinetics of the adsorption process fitted a pseudo-second-order reaction (R2 0.990–0.996). Adsorption fitted well both the Langmuir and the Freundlich model, but the Freundlich model presented higher R2 (0.988–0.998). The qmax values estimated by the Langmuir plotting were in the range 15.6–19.4 mg/g and the n values from Freundlich isotherms between 1.87 and 2.39. Heat-treated wood was a better adsorption material than untreated wood for chromium adsorption. This can be a good application for the sawdust produced by the processing of heat-treated wood at primary and secondary wood processing mills or for the recycling of heat-treated wood at the end of product life.