Suppose that if we adsorb toxic elements such as textile dyes, pesticides, heavy metals, and/or endocrine disruptors that disrupt the hormonal systems of humans and aquatic animals, what would be the future of the pollutant after adsorption? Suppose we regenerate our adsorbent material for another reuse, what would be the fate of the pollutant? Because if this pollutant is landfilled, it would still be harmful to the environment. Is there a technique to eliminate it permanently knowing that adsorption is a technique of separation and not of degradation? Are there any relevant documents answering the question? Thank you so much
That depends on the adsorbed element. E.g. if your adsorbe metalls you can refine them.
In case of mirco-pollutants you can think about different strategies for a full carbonization, if you get a highly enriched effluent you can use electrooxidation.
Depending on the price of the adsorbent also a "thermal recycling" could be efficient.
Active coal can also be reactivated by a heat treatment.
The adsorbent itself is seldom moved into a landfill, mainly burnd to achive a full carbonization.
It is correct that the adsorbed material is concentrated and then treated in a suitable manner which is preferable to landfilling as that would only concentrate the material and move it. Zero landfilling is optimal.
Each waste stream will have treatment requirements. There is no universal solution. Often the what is cheapest now to get the material offsite method is selected. This leads to exposure problems elsewhere.
Thomas Mayer-Gall from my point of view photocatalysis is the best solution since photocatalysts can be loaded on various adsorbent in order to transform the pollutants into harmless products such as CO2 and H2O
Benabbas Khaled photocatalysis cant carbonize PFC and also some mircopollutants are not fully carbonized, and sometimes the decompostion products get even more toxic.
Thomas Mayer-Gall the photocatalytic efficiency depends on pollutants concentration, specially when the used photocatalyst are only sensitive to UV light but since visible light photocatalyst are used the results are different.
The best way to deal with a carbon adsorbed pollutant depends entirely on what you are trying to dispose of.
It's such a huge variable there is no way to answer your question without you being a whole lot more specific on what it is.