Example 1
Wheat straw was first air dried, then oven dried in an oven at 105° C. The dried wheat straw was then ground in a hammer mill to particles sizes as high as 0.5 mm and sieved. The pyrolyzer was then operated to temperatures between 400° C. and 600° C. and 50 grams of wheat straw powder was fed into the pyrolyzer chamber. The pyrolyzer was operated for 2 hours to 2.5 hours for each batch experiment before feeding the next batch (50 g of wheat straw) into the pyrolyzer chamber. The biochar was collected from the cup holder of the pyrolyzer. Nitrogen was continuously flowing through the pyrolyzer during the preparation of biochar to provide an inert environment. For the loading of the biochar, 08 grams of biochar was provided in an emerald flask and 02 grams of copper sulfate (CuSO4) was added to that. 40 grams of deionized water was then added into the flask to form a solution and the solution was stirred for 45 minutes at 50° C. Afterwards, the solution was heated in an oven until a wet biochar was achieved. Then, the wet biochar was placed in a muffle furnace at 600° C. for 2 hours at a heating rate of 2° C./sec. The formation of copper augmented biochar was confirmed through XRD and FTIR analysis before the copper augmented biochar was used for chromium removal experiments.
