Goethite dispersed corn straw-derived biochar for phosphate recovery from synthetic urine and its potential as a slow-release fertilizer

Abstract In this study, goethiete (α-FeOOH) -biochar (BC) composites were successfully developed from a co-precipitation reaction under alkaline conditions (pH = 11.93) and used as the adsorbent for phosphate recovery from urine. The morphology and crystallinity of α-FeOOH-BC composites were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. α-FeOOH loaded BC was found to be amorphous. This may be caused by the Si residue in BC. The Elovich model and the Langmuir model fit better to the kinetic and isotherm results of α-FeOOH-600BC, respectively, indicating that phosphate adsorption is mainly a chemisorption and monolayer adsorption process. The α-FeOOH-600BC with amorphous structure showed higher adsorption capacity than crystalline α-FeOOH, and the maximum phosphate sorption capacity reached 57.39 mg g−1. Additionally, the extractable phosphate of this material was approximately 967.5 mg P·kg−1 suggesting the α-FeOOH-600BC after adsorption could be a promising alternative as a slow-phosphate-release fertilizer. Fourier-transform infrared and X-ray induced photoelectron spectroscopy results showed that the active sites of the adsorption of phosphate were the Fe-OH bonds that formed inner-sphere complexes (Fe-O-P).