Characteristics of biochar derived from marine macroalgae and fabrication of granular biochar by entrapment in calcium-alginate beads for phosphate removal from aqueous solution

In this work, granular biochar, Laminaria japonica-derived biochar (LB)-calcium alginate beads (LB-CAB), was successfully prepared by dropping a mixture of powder biochar and alginate solution into a calcium chloride solution for phosphate adsorption. Among different marine macroalgae derived biochars, LB exhibited the best performance, showing a phosphate removal rate of 97.02%, which was attributed to its high Ca/P and Mg/P ratios. With increasing pyrolysis temperature up to 600 °C, the physicochemical properties of LB became suitable for adsorbing phosphate. Experimental results of kinetics and equilibrium isotherms at different temperatures (10-30 °C) showed that the phosphate adsorption process is endothermic and is mainly controlled by external mass transfer and the intraparticle diffusion rate. The maximum adsorption capacity was found to be 157.7 mg g−1 at 30 °C, as fitted by the Langmuir-Freundlich model, which is higher than capacities of other powder form of biochars.