After the exploitation of adsorbents (adsorption of pesticides from water) how can they be safely disposed so as to prevent environmental problems.
I think of two ways :
- heat regeneration (provide enough energy to desorb the entire pollutant), but it is necessary to treat the fumes ;
- use a solvent that has more affinity with the pollutant than the adsorbent to remove it.
1) Heat it slowly to drive off the pollutant, and then treat the fumes.
2) Heat it rapidly with lots of oxygen to burn the pollutants (good if organic, not effective for inorganic). You may still need to treat the fumes. Maybe for a heavy metal pollutant heat to the point where the adsorbent turns to ash and the ashes fuse to form a glass. You could facilitate this by adding glass to the mix before heating.
3) Use a solvent, but then you have a larger volume of toxic solvent.
4) Chemically react the pollutant to render it non-toxic. This may be easier with an organic pollutant than heavy metal pollutants. Maybe with heavy metals you could extract it from the adsorbent and then percipitate it.
5) Let a professional handle it. Put it through the hazardous waste disposal facility.
I agree with Timothy A Ebert , but if the catalyst that used in adsorption method has optical properties(i.e used as photocatalyst) now you can use UV light or solar to gradate the organic compounds in safe method.
In my field I used adsorption 30 min than used light to decolorization the organic compounds colored or colorless...
I forgot about photolysis, though that is a primary degradative pathway for many insecticides.
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