Adsorption potential for PM<inf>2.5</inf> and TVOC from printing job using wastepaper and rice husk

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the efficiency of aerogel adsorbent produced from combining wastepaper and rice husk to reduce printing pollutants. They were prepared from rice husk residue and three types of wastepaper including two sides-used paper (2P), color paper, and newspaper. In printing operation, the concentrations of PM2.5 and TVOC were found at 0.019±0.005 mg/m3 and 0.185±0.005 ppm, respectively. Factorial designs by eighteen experiments revealed the use of color and newspaper wastes resulted higher removal efficiency for PM2.5 whereas the efficiency for TVOC differed compared with the 2P protocol. Moreover, applying 2P achieved better values for both emissions and provided the best aerogel obtained from 2P without pretreatment and proportion between rice husk and wastepaper at 1:1 (52.6 and 56.2% for PM2.5 and TVOC, respectively). To determine adsorption behavior at equilibrium, the adsorption isotherms were fitted to the Langmuir equation with an R2 value of 0.8201 and 0.9973 for PM2.5 and TVOC, respectively. The adsorption sites on the aerogel surface were homogeneous in nature and presented a strong interaction between pollutants and adsorbent fibers. They revealed a maximum capacity for PM2.5 and TVOC of 0.0008 mg/g and 0.099 ppm/g, respectively.