Hydrothermal liquefaction accelerates the toxicity and solubility of arsenic in biowaste
Abstract
Arsenic (As) is one of notorious metalloids due to its high toxicity to human beings and ecological system. Understanding its fate and speciation transformation mechanism during hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of microalgae is of crucial importance for the application of its HTL products. 80.0-96.7% of As in raw microalgae was migrated into the liquid phase (aqueous phase and biocrude oil) with the increase of reaction severity from 0.108 to 0.517. HPLC-ICPMS reveals that 67% of the As in microalgae accounted for As(V) with a concentration of 68.4 mg/kg. The other fractions in microalgae were primarily As(III) with a concentration of 36.3 mg/kg. Model compounds experiments illustrate that over 30% of the As(V) in feedstocks was unexpectedly converted into more soluble and toxic As (III). Hydrochar containing O-containing groups (e.g., aliphatic C-OH) was probably contribute to the reduction transformation of As(V) to higher toxic As(III). Meantime, the aqueous phase facilitated the reduction reaction via providing a reducing environment and serving as hydrogen donator. This study firstly revealed the speciation transformation of As(V) to As(III) during HTL of wastewater cultivated microalgae.
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Zhang Y. H. shares authorship mainly with Liu Z. D. and Chen W. T.
“Zhang Y. H. shares authorship mainly with Liu Z. D. [17, 53–55] and Chen W. T. [56–59], as shown in Fig. 5.”
From Research Progress, Trends, and Future Prospects on Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Algae for Biocrude Production: A Bibliometric Analysis (2024) · cites this paper as [55]
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A New Look of Quantified Methods for Arsenic Speciation and Risk During Hydrothermal LiquefactionPreprint
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- Authors
- Li, H., Cao, M., Zhang, Y., & Liu, Z.
- Affiliations
- Nanchang University (CN)
- China Agricultural University (CN)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Corresponding author
- Liu, Zhidan
- Venue
- Journal of Hazardous Materials
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-09
- Volume
- 418
- Pages
- 126341
- ISSN
- 0304-3894 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3166083463
- Cited by
- 33
- References
- 50
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 3
- FWCI
- 2.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Hazardous Materials (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Chemistry › Arsenic contamination and mitigation
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geochemistry and Petrology › Coal and Its By-products
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Thermochemical Biomass Conversion Processes
- Keywords
- hydrothermal liquefaction, arsenic, arsenic speciation, arsenate reduction, arsenite, microalgae, organic waste, biocrude, hydrochar, reaction severity, aqueous phase, metalloid toxicity
- MeSH terms
- Arsenic, Humans, Solubility, Temperature, Water, Biomass, Biofuels, Microalgae, Wastewater
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