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Biochar adsorption presents a potential remediation method for the control of hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) pollution in the environment. It has been found that HOCs bound on biochar become less bioavailable, so speculations have been proposed that HOCs will persist for longer half-life periods in biochar-amended soil/sediment. To investigate how biochar application affects coupled adsorption-biodegradation, nonylphenol was selected as the target contaminant, and biochar derived from rice straw was applied as the adsorbent. The results showed that there was an optimal dosage of biochar in the presence of both adsorption and biodegradation for a given nonylphenol concentration, thus allowing the transformation of nonylphenol to be optimized. Approximately 47.6% of the nonylphenol was biodegraded in two days when 0.005 g biochar was added to 50 mg/L of nonylphenol, which was 125% higher than the relative quantity biodegraded without biochar, though the resistant desorption component of nonylphenol reached 87.1%. All adsorptive forms of nonylphenol (f rap, f slow, f r) decreased gradually during the biodegradation experiment, and the resistant desorption fraction of nonylphenol (f r) on biochar could also be biodegraded. It was concluded that an appropriate amount of biochar could stimulate biodegradation, not only illustrating that the dosage of biochar had an enormous influence on the half-life periods of HOCs but also alleviating concerns that enhanced HOCs binding by biochar may cause secondary pollution in biochar-modified environment.

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In a previous study, we found that rice-straw biochar degraded and removed hydrophobic organic contaminants (HOCs) through coupled adsorption-biodegradation. However, few studies have determined whether biochar affects HOC isomer degradation and isomer-selective biodegradation or whether biochar can alter HOC isomer features, resulting in changes to HOC isomer residues in water environments. In this study, the effects of biochar at two dosages (0.001 and 0.01 g) on the biodegradation of ten isomers of a typical xenoestrogen of nonylphenol (NP) were evaluated. The results revealed that there were no effects of biochar on the adsorption of NP isomers. However, biochar addition affected the biodegradation of a specific isomer without altering the features of the NP isomers. The treatment of NP isomers with Pseudoxanthomonas sp. yielded degradation ratios ranging from 60.7 to 100%. At 0.001 g biochar treatment, the degradation of eight NP isomers was enhanced (except for NP and NP) due to their bulky structures. The degradation of the ten NP isomers was inhibited when 0.01 g biochar was added. These findings characterized the effects of biochar on NP isomer contaminants and provided basic information for the application of biochar for the remediation of NP isomer contaminants.

The application of carbonized materials (CMs) from solid wastes for the control of hydrophobic organic contaminants is a promising way to treat wastes. In this paper, the physicochemical properties of CMs prepared from industry (fly ash and sewage sludge), plant (rice straw and bamboo fragments), and livestock (chicken manure) were analyzed, their adsorption capacities for nonylphenol were studied, and the relationship between the adsorption capacity and the physicochemical properties of different types of CMs was investigated. The results showed that the adsorption capacities of CMs prepared from plant solid wastes (rice straw and bamboo fragments) far exceeded those of the industrial and livestock solid wastes. The parameter K obtained by the Freundlich model showed a significant and positive correlation with carbon content (C%), carboxyl content, specific surface area (SSA), and pore volume, and a negative correlation with ash content (ash%). Compared with CMs produced by the other two types of solid wastes, CMs from the plant solid wastes had the characteristics of a large SSA, rich pore structure (especially mesoporous) and high aromaticity (high C%), which were the main reasons for their superior adsorption capacity. The results could provide a scientific basis for the utilization of solid wastes.