Oleksii Tominin väitöskirja Aalto-yliopistossa on valmistunut. Väitöskirjan nimi on Tailoring the difference: Tailored biochars for sustainable water treatment: Customizing adsorbents for specific applications.
Modification of the biomass-based activated carbon for various water treatment purposes
Humanity is now looking for ways to reduce the carbon footprint with more sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions for industries. In the water treatment field, one such solution is the replacement of fossil-based materials for water treatment with renewable ones. For instance, activated carbon, produced mostly from fossil coal, is used in many advanced water treatment operations. The excavation and transportation of coal have a considerable carbon footprint and consequently impact on the environment. A good option for activated carbon replacement is bio-based activated carbon, the so-called biochar. Biochar is produced from biomass, a globally available, renewable organic material.
The main problem is that conventional activated carbon has better treatment properties than biochar. To improve the properties of biochar various modification methods are used during biochar production. The modification of biochars has been extensively studied over the last years, but it is a very variable process, that has several issues.
This dissertation examines how different factors of production and modification impact the final properties of biochar. It implements the term “tailoring” in the modification process, meaning adjusting the factors of production, to create the specific biochar for certain applications. The study attempts to structure the existing knowledge of biochar modification, combine it with the obtained novel data, and show the big picture of the modification process as well as how this process can be manipulated. Moreover, the study emphasizes the main challenges, which may appear during the modification and shows the possibilities of future research.
However, the topic of biochar production and utilization is very vast, so the research has its boundaries and limitations. It focuses only on biochar “tailoring” for the different applications in the water treatment field but has the potential to be expanded on other fields of biochar use. “Tailoring” of biochars is a theoretical concept for now. This dissertation shows the opportunities and directions for further research and stands among the first steps to implement "tailoring" on the industrial scale.
Väitöskirjan verkko-osoite on: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/123670
