Agro-Industrial Biochar for Greywater Purification: A Sustainable Path to Water Reclamation

Abstract

Water scarcity is a growing concern for all of us, pushing us to find smarter, more sustainable ways to manage our precious water resources. Greywater, which is essentially all the wastewater from our homes except for what comes from toilets, is actually a huge, often overlooked source of water that we could be reusing for non-drinking purposes. The problem is, traditional ways of treating greywater can be quite energy-intensive and costly. This article dives into how agro-industrial biochar – a simple, low-cost, and eco-friendly material – can be a game-changer for cleaning greywater, opening up new possibilities for water reclamation. Made from agricultural and industrial waste through a process called pyrolysis, biochar has some amazing properties, like a super porous structure and lots of active spots on its surface, making it fantastic at grabbing pollutants. In this study, we put agro-industrial biochar to the test, treating both lab-made and real greywater to see how well it reduces things like chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), cloudiness (turbidity), and even nutrients. Our findings show that biochar is incredibly effective at removing most of these contaminants, leaving us with water that's clean enough to meet or even exceed standards for various non-drinking uses, such as watering our gardens and fields, or even flushing toilets. Using agro-industrial biochar doesn't just offer a sustainable way to treat greywater; it also turns waste into something valuable, fitting perfectly with the idea of a circular economy and supporting big European Union goals like the European Blue Deal and Green Deal. Ultimately, this approach offers a hopeful path to ease water stress and build more resilient water systems worldwide.