Tree bark is among the widely available and low-cost sorbents for metal adsorption in aqueous environments. A state-of-the-art review is compiled carrying out a comprehensive literature search on the biosorption of heavy metals in solution onto different bark species, including a characterization of bark structure and chemistry. The results indicate that biosorption has been gaining importance for bark valorization purposes. Promising heavy metal uptake values have already been attained using different bark species. These values are comparable to those obtained with commercial activated carbons. Bark has a cost advantage over activated carbon and can be used without any pretreatment. Thus, bark offers a green alternative to remove heavy metals from industrial waters. A brief survey of the chemical composition and structure of different bark species is presented. Suggestions are made to improve screening of bark species for specific heavy metal ions sorption.
The present study evaluates biosorption efficiencies of pesticides atrazine, fluazifop-P-butyl, lactofen, lambda-cyhalothrin and chloropyrifos on corks of Quercus cerris and Quercus suber trees. The studies were carried out in batch and effects of pH (3, 7 and 9), temperature (10, 20, 30 and 40 °C), and time on adsorption were measured. Pesticide analyzes were performed with an Ion-trap Mass Spectrometer following the SANCO/10232/2006 EU extraction protocol for pesticides. The results show that the highest adsorption efficiency (80% and 70%) of the pesticides was found at pH 3, 30 °C and 360 minutes. The adsorption kinetics of pesticides followed pseudo-second order and pseudo-first order kinetics. The results obtained in this study show that Q. cerris and Q. suber corks can be used to develop efficient and economical cork-based alternatives for the treatment of environments contaminated with pesticides.
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