Republic of the Philippines

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

Pablo Borbon Main II, Batangas City
College of Engineering, Architecture & Fine Arts
www.batstate-u.edu.ph Tel. No. (043) 425-0139 loc. 118

Chemical and Food Engineering Department

ADSORPTION OF MERCURY IONS IN CONTAMINATED WATER

USING BIOCHAR BASED FROM PHIL 2000-0791 SUGARCANE

BAGASSE

Brillante, Simon Gabriel M.

Camacho, Rich Corban C.

Salud, Forsha Mae M.

ChE-3104

I. RATIONALE
 The need for a clean supply of water is a demand that continuously grows as global

communities advance and continue to have rapid population growth, a larger supply of clean

water is needed to be utilized in industrial and commercial processes that continue to multiply, as

well as ensuring the health of the general population. In the presence of various industrial

processes, the contamination of water with toxic and hazardous substances due to improper

disposal has been a major contributor with the degrading quality of water. Water contamination

due to the presence of heavy metal ions is a continuously growing problem, thus, the need for the

innovation of efficient solutions for the treatment of contaminated water is needed to ensure the

safety of the population. Mercury ions are an example of heavy metal ions (Khan et al., 2020)

In the recent progress for the removal of heavy metal ions, specifically mercury ions in water,

various methods are used in the process of mercury ion removal in water, these methods range

from chemical precipitations, utilization of the exchange of ions, liquid extraction, electrolysis,

and even metal reduction. The use of the adsorption process for the reduction and removal of

heavy metal ions in water is an economically viable method, and is also considered to be simple

when compared to the previous methods presented (Yan et al., 2021).

Different materials have been used in the adsorption of heavy metal ions in water, ranging

from sulfur – rich metal sulphides, clay, nitrogen, biomagnetic materials (Yan et al., 2021).

Activated carbon is also a conventionally used, however it is restricted by its low economic

viability (Raj et al., 2022).

Sugarcane bagasse is defined as the byproduct of the processing of sugarcanes for the
extraction of its juice, although various products that are environmentally friendly could be

synthesized from the bagasse, the normal procedure is to incinerate them for the use of in-house

boilers of sugar plants (Jacob et al., 2020).

According to the Sugar Regulatory Administration the PHIL 2000-0791 variety of sugarcane

is classified as a large sugarcane variety, theoretically, a larger variety of sugarcane would

contain more cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. A study conducted in 2021 by Mahmud and

Annanya, it was deduced that “Cellulose covers about one-third of the plant tissues of sugarcane.

Sugarcane bagasse contains about 40–50% cellulose and 25–35% hemicellulose.”

Sugarcane bagasse is composed of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, examples of functional

groups that compromise lignin are methyl, hydroxy, and carboxyl functional groups, these

functional groups are determined to bind with heavy metal ions, through methods such as

complexing, coordinating, chelating, and hydrogen bonding (Raj et al., 2022).

Microwave pyrolysis of sugarcane bagasse has been reported to be a much efficient way of

producing biochar when compared to the conventional pyrolysis process as it utilizes less time,

energy, and has a lower temperature requirement (S. & Paramasivan, 2021).

The goal of this study is to produce a biochar that is based on the PHIL 2000 – 0791 variety

of sugarcane by taking the bagasse of the said sugarcane variety, and subjecting it to the process

of microwave pyrolysis, and to use the biochar produced to determine the efficiency of the

bagasse-based biochar in the adsorption of mercury ions in contaminated water.

II. OBJECTIVES
General Objective

- To synthesize PHIL 2000-0791 bagasse-based biochar for the adsorption of Mercury ions in
water.

Specific Objective/s:

- To utilize PHIL 2000-0791 sugar cane variant bagasse.

- To create a biochar based on the bagasse of PHIL 2000-0791 variant sugarcane.

- To determine the efficiency of the produced biochar in the removal of Mercury ions in

contaminated water.

III. MATERIALS AND METHODS

PHIL 2000-0791 sugarcane variety bagasse will be processed to produce biochar in this

study. The methods for the study are discussed as the collection of the bagasse, and the creation

of the biochar through microwave pyrolysis.

Collection of Sugarcane Bagasse

1. Sugarcane bagasse will be bought from sugarcane farmers, or plantations and will be

properly contained once obtained.

Microwave Pyrolysis of Sugarcane Bagasse

1. Ensure that the temperature for the microwave pyrolysis process is set between 400 to 900

degrees Celsius to ensure the optimal production of biochar.

2. Set the processing time of the microwave pyrolysis of the sugarcane bagasse to a

minimum of 5 minutes, and the maximum ranging to several hours of processing.

3. Set the heating rate of the microwave pyrolysis process to a minimum of 0.1 (°C/s) to a

maximum of 10 (°C/s).

4. Collection of the products of biomass pyrolysis, the collection of bio-oil, biochar, and

syngas (Foong et al., 2020)

Chemical activation of Biochar produced from the pyrolysis of sugarcane bagasse

1. Prepare aqueous solution of Potassium Hydroxide that ranges from 3.5 to 15 mL volume.

2. Impregnate the biochar with constant mixing of the solution, the impregnation duration

could range from 5 hours, to 24 hours.

3. The impregnated biochar would then be filtered and oven dried in preparation for the

pyrolysis.

4. Pyrolyze the impregnated biochar in a temperature range of 400 to 700 degrees Celsius.

5. Wash the pyrolyzed biochar with dilute Hydrochloric acid, and warm water to finish the

activation process (Foong et al., 2020).

Adsorption efficiency experiment

The presence of the mercury ions in a water sample would be evaluated before the

treatment with the biochar produced from the sugarcane bagasse, and upon treatment with the

biochar the mercury ion presence would be evaluated again to determine the efficiency of the

biochar in the removal of heavy metal ions

Budget Requirements

The tentative budgetary requirement is seen to be between 7 thousand and 8 thousand

pesos for the collection of the sugarcane bagasse.

One kilogram of caustic potash flakes are priced at 200 Philippine Pesos, while 0.1 N

Hydrochloric acid is determined to be priced at 550 pesos for 500 mL.

Possible Research Advisors

 IV. REFERENCES

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Jacob, M. M., Ponnuchamy, M., Kapoor, A., & Sivaraman, P. (2020). Bagasse based biochar for

the adsorptive removal of chlorpyrifos from contaminated water. Journal of

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