Removal of bifenthrin pesticide from aqueous solutions by treated patellidae shells using a new fixed bed column filtration technique
Introduction
Pyrethroids are classified as the fourth most widely used group of insecticides in the world (Brander et al., 2016). They are used as pesticides instead of organophosphate compounds due to their relatively low toxicity to mammals and high capacity of pest control (Bao et al., 2020). However, studies have confirmed that pyrethroids cause potential endocrine disruption effects and develop neurotoxicity in human body (Guo et al., 2013). Due to its harmful effects, the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) grants the maximum residue limits for pyrethroids to be not more than 0.05 μg/g (Li et al., 2010).
Various technologies such as UV/ozone (Tran et al., 2014), adsorptive micellar flocculation (Kuipa and Kuipa, 2015) esterase activity (Wheelock et al., 2006) and adsorption (Xu et al., 2012) have been developed to remove pyrethroids from agricultural and industrial effluents. Most of them require significant financial input and their use is limited (Syuhadah and Rohasliney, 2012). Nevertheless, adsorption may be the highly effective (Shamsollahi and Partovinia, 2019). The adsorption on activated carbon generally had a high capacity to retain pesticides (Gupta and Ali, 2001), but the rapid saturation, high cost and the treatment of the spent adsorbent decrease its value. To solve these problems, scientists have directed to another type of adsorption, which is biosorption. Several low-cost biosorbents such as treated eggshells (Bakka et al., 2016), groundnut shell ash (Trivedi and Mandavgane, 2016), pecan shell (Niandou et al., 2016), Neem Bark Dust (Chattoraj et al., 2016), eucalyptus bark (Gebresemati and Sahu, 2016), treated patellidae shells (TPS) (Bakka et al., 2018), have been investigated. These biosorbents are wastes which can be of vegetable or animal origin. Biosorbents can be considered highly effective because of their cheaper cost, simple design, rapidity, ease of use and the availability of biosorbents without hazardous compound formation. The biomaterial (TPS) is obtained by chemically treating the external shells of a marine gastropod widely distributed in the coastal areas of the Atlantic Ocean. Biosorption is considered the most suitable approach until now because it is simple, cheap and high effective and it can be an alternative process for the elimination of pesticides from wastewater (Mushtaq et al., 2016).
The biosorption of bifenthrin, as a representative pesticide of the pyrethroid family, has already been studied by other authors under operational conditions in batches using different adsorbents (Domingues et al., 2005). Nevertheless, agro-industrial wastewater is generated in large quantities, which requires the use of dynamic techniques that can treat a large volume of effluent in a short time, such as column filtration. For this reason, dynamic adsorption experiments on a fixed bed column were necessary to obtain practical information on the adsorption efficiency under its flow conditions. Few authors have reported on the adsorption of pesticides at dynamic operational conditions using fixed-bed columns (Deokar et al., 2016a; Cobas et al., 2016; Dichiara et al., 2015).
In this work, the effectiveness of treated patellidae shells (TPS) was investigated as a gastropod waste, eco-friendly, low cost and widespread biosorbent to remove bifenthrin insecticide, widely used in Souss-Massa’s agriculture, from aqueous solutions using fixed-bed column process. The TPS biosorbent was characterized using XRD, FTIR, SEM-EDS, TGA-DTA, pHPZC, and BET analysis techniques. In order to model the experimental data, the Chu logistic model was established. This model allows to computerize the parameter values of the B-A, Thomas and Y-N models through a single function with a single Adj.R2 and χ2 for each data set. Comparison between the both linear and non-linear forms of the Chu logistic model reveals the appropriate form giving the best fit with the observed data. The adsorption isotherm was also measured and fitted to two mathematical models Langmuir and Freundlich. The desorption and recycling study of the fixed-bed column was also performed.
Section snippets
Biosorbent and biosorbate
Analytical grade bifenthrin of 99.9 % purity was purchased from Sigma Aldrich Company Casablanca (Morocco) and a stock solution was prepared in methanol. The bifenthrin molecular formula is C23H22ClF3O2, the molar mass is 422.87 g/mol, the solubility in water is 0.1 mg/L. Patellidae shells were collected from the coast of Massa city in Morocco. The shells were washed with distilled water and treated for 10 min with HCl acid 0.1 M, rinsed and placed in an oven at 110 °C for 12 h. The shells were
Characterization of biosorbent
The XRD spectrum, shown in Fig. 2, reveals the presence of calcite as a major phase and aragonite as a minor phase. The major peak is located at 2θ = 29.47° in addition to 23 other small peaks. The identification of the calcite phase has been confirmed by the JCPDS standard No. 96-900-9668 which has a hexagonal crystalline system, a space group R-3c and a space number of 167. The Miller indices attributed to the Bragg peaks are: a = b = 4.9910 Å; c = 17.0680 Å; α=β = 90°; γ = 120°. The identification of the
Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of Treated Patellidae Shells (TPS) for bifenthrin pesticide removal from aqueous solutions under dynamic conditions using a fixed bed column. The most important conclusions are as follows:
- 1
The characterization of TPS reveals that it is a biomaterial composed of calcium carbonate with a large specific surface area.
- 2
The study of breakthrough curves of bifenthrin biosorption on TPS fixed bed column shows that the breakthrough and exhaustion
Declaration of Competing Interest
We wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest associated with this publication and there has been no significant financial support for this work that could have influenced its outcome. We confirm that the manuscript has been read and approved by all named authors and that there are no other persons who satisfied the criteria for authorship but are not listed. We further confirm that the order of authors listed in the manuscript has been approved by all of us. We confirm that
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