A comprehensive characterization of corn stalk and study of carbonized corn stalk in dye and gas oil sorption

Corn stalk (agriculture residue) is widely spread throughout the world. The present technologically fast changing situation resulted to waste management practices, it is desirable that the disposal of plant waste should be done in a scientific manner by keeping in view the economic and pollution consideration. This is only possible when the plant waste has the potential to be used as a raw material for some useful products.Despite that, there is lack of its scientific data concerning surface, thermal–mechanical and physical properties of these fibers. In this work, corn stalk was characterized by analytical techniques such as FTIR, X-ray, TGA and SEM. Also, the efficiency of surface modification of corn stalk by carbonization is demonstrated. FTIR showed the presence of CH2, CH3 and carbonyl groups, which mainly include ketones, esters and some bands related to lignin and hemicellulose in corn stalk. The thermal data showed that corn stalk can be used below 200 °C. Sorption of dye and gas oil was greatly enhanced by the surface modification which indicated through SEM images. The results indicate that biosolid could be employed as effective and low cost material for being used as sorbent materials.