Two-step hydrothermal conversion of biomass waste to humic acid using hydrochar as intermediate

doi:10.1007/s11783-023-1719-8

Front. Environ. Sci. Eng.

2023, Vol. 17

Issue (10) : 119 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-023-1719-8

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Two-step hydrothermal conversion of biomass waste to humic acid using hydrochar as intermediate

Yuchao Shao¹, Jun Zhao², Yuyang Long³, Wenjing Lu¹(

)

¹. School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
². Department of Biology, Institute of Bioresource and Agriculture, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong 999077, China
³. Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Solid Waste Treatment and Recycling, Instrumental Analysis Center, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310012, China

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Abstract

Converting biomass materials to humic acid is a sustainable method for humic acid production and achieve biomass valorization. A two-step hydrothermal treatment method was adopted in this study to produce humic acid from corn stalks. In the first step of the process, hydrochar was prepared at different hydrothermal temperatures and pH values. Their chemical properties were then analyzed, and the hydrochar-derived humic acids were produced under alkaline hydrothermal conditions (denoted as HHA_alk). The hydrochar, prepared under high temperature (200 °C) and strong acidic (pH 0) conditions, achieved high HHA_alk yields (i.e., 67.9 wt% and 68.8 wt% calculated based on weight of hydrochar). The sources of HHA_alk formation were as follows: 1) production in the hydrochar preparation stage, and 2) increment under the alkaline hydrothermal treatment of hydrochar. The degree of hydrochar unsaturation was suggested as an indicator for evaluating the hydrochar humification potential under alkaline hydrothermal conditions. This study provides an important reference for the preparation of suitable hydrochar with high hydrothermal humification potential.

Keywords Biowaste Hydrochar Humic acid Hydrothermal parameter Unsaturation

Corresponding Author(s): Jun Zhao,Wenjing Lu

Issue Date: 23 April 2023

Cite this article:

Yuchao Shao,Jun Zhao,Yuyang Long, et al. Two-step hydrothermal conversion of biomass waste to humic acid using hydrochar as intermediate[J]. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2023, 17(10): 119.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/10.1007/s11783-023-1719-8
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/Y2023/V17/I10/119

Fig.1 Scheme of alkaline hydrothermal humification of biomass-derived hydrochar. (a) Reproduced from (Soltanian et al., 2020) with permission from Elsevier, copyright 2020; (b) reproduced from (Shi et al., 2019) with permission from ACS publications, copyright 2019; (c) acknowledged molecular structure model of humic acid.

Fig.2 Van Krevelen diagram of corn stalk and hydrochars obtained under different hydrothermal temperature and pH treatment (The data of H/C and O/C was provided in Table S1).

Fig.3 The FT-IR spectra of corn stalk and each hydrochar.

Fig.4 The high-resolution XPS scan of the C 1s for each hydrochar.

Fig.5 (a) The yield of solid residue and hydrothermal humic acid (HHA_alk) from each hydrochar under alkaline hydrothermal treatment; (b) the HHA_alk yields calculated from corn stalk considering each hydrochar yield under different hydrothermal temperature and pH; (c) the fluorescence characteristics of each HHA_alk produced from different hydrochars under alkaline hydrothermal treatment. The “*” represents that the HHA_alk yield was significantly different at the 0.05 probability level, analyzed by using one-way analysis of variance (IBM SPSS Statistics, USA).

Fig.6 (a) The proportion of hydrothermal humic acid (HHA), hydrothermal fulvic acid (HFA) and remaining substance (RS) in each hydrochar; (b) the yields of solid residue and HHA_alk produced from RS after alkaline hydrothermal treatment; (c) the yield of HHA produced from the different sources in G1–G6 trials: 1) produced in the stage of hydrochar preparation (denoted as HHA₁), 2) produced from alkaline hydrothermal treatment of RS (denoted as HHA₂) and 3) produced from interaction of hydrochar component during alkaline hydrothermal treatment.

Fig.7 The correlation between hydrochar-derived HHA_alk yield and the degree of unsaturation of hydrochar (The data of H/C and O/C was provided in Table S1).

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