CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 197Urban Stormwater Management SolutionsEnvironmental remediation with nanomaterialsPharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts

Evaluation of pilot-scale biochar-amended woodchip bioreactors to remove nitrate, metals, and trace organic contaminants from urban stormwater runoff

Ashoori, Negin, Teixido, Marc, Spahr, Stephanie, LeFevre, Gregory H., Sedlak, David L., Luthy, Richard G.·2019·Water Research
DOI 10.1016/j.watres.2019.01.040
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Stormwater is increasingly being valued as a freshwater resource in arid regions and can provide opportunities for beneficial reuse via aquifer recharge if adequate pollutant removal can be achieved. We envision a multi-unit operation approach to capture, treat, and recharge (CTR) stormwater using low energy, cost-effective technologies appropriate for larger magnitude, less frequent events. Herein, we tested nutrient, metal, and trace organic contaminant removal of a pilot-scale CTR system in the laboratory using biochar-amended woodchip bioreactors following eight months of aging under field conditions with exposure to real stormwater. Replicate columns with woodchips and biochar (33% by weight), woodchips and straw, or woodchips only were operated with continuous, saturated flow for eight months using water from a watershed that drained an urban area consisting of residential housing and parks in Sonoma, California. After aging, columns were challenged for five months by continuous exposure to synthetic stormwater amended with 50 μg L -1 of six trace organic contaminants (i.e., fipronil, diuron, 1H-benzotriazole, atrazine, 2,4-D, and TCEP) and five metals (Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn) frequently detected in stormwater in order to replicate the treatment unit operation of a CTR system. Throughout the eight-month aging and five-month challenge experiment, nitrate concentrations were below the detection limit after treatment (i.e., -1 ). The removal efficiencies for metals in all trea…

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.watres.2019.01.040

Cites

59 of 59 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Batch/column/mesocosm experiments have frequently shown that biochar amendment can enhance the OMP removal capacity of biofilters.

    “Batch/column/mesocosm experiments have frequently shown that biochar amendment can enhance the OMP removal capacity of biofilters (Ashoori et al., 2019; Buates et al., 2024; Chen et al., 2017; Pritchard et al., 2023; Roh et al., 2015; Spahr et al., 2022; Ulrich et al., 2017b, 2017a, 2015; Yan et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2015).”

    From Critical field evaluations of biochar-amended stormwater biofilters for PFAS and other organic micropollutant removals (2025) · cites this paper as Ashoori et al., 2019

  • The particle size of the biochar used herein (0.1-10 mm; d50: 4 mm) was larger than what has been used in most lab-scale studies (dmax<1 mm) that demonstrate relatively effective OMP removal rates.

    “The particle size of the biochar used herein (0.1–10 mm; d50: 4 mm) was larger than what has been used in most lab-scale studies (dmax<1 mm) that demonstrate relatively effective OMP removal rates (e.g., Ashoori et al., 2019; Spahr et al., 2022; Ulrich et al., 2017b, 2017a, 2015).”

    From Critical field evaluations of biochar-amended stormwater biofilters for PFAS and other organic micropollutant removals (2025) · cites this paper as Ashoori et al., 2019

  • Extensive amounts of small-sized biochar may reduce hydraulic conductivity, limiting the biochar's longevity.

    “Extensive amounts of small-sized biochar may also reduce hydraulic”

    From Critical field evaluations of biochar-amended stormwater biofilters for PFAS and other organic micropollutant removals (2025) · cites this paper as Ashoori et al., 2019

  • Biochar is abundant and inexpensive to produce and exhibits a huge potential for applications in stormwater treatment.

    “Biochar is another emerging material, which is both abundant and inexpensive to produce [19], and exhibits a huge potential for applications in stormwater treatment [20][21][22].”

    From Application of Biochar in Stormwater Treatment: Experimental and Modeling Investigation (2021) · cites this paper as [20]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 61 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Ashoori, N., Teixido, M., Spahr, S., LeFevre, G. H., Sedlak, D. L., & Luthy, R. G.
Affiliations
  • U.S. National Science Foundation (US)
  • University of Iowa (US)
Corresponding author
Luthy, Richard G.
ORCID
Venue
Water Research
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2019-05
Volume
154
Pages
1-11
ISSN
0043-1354 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.watres.2019.01.040
OpenAlex
W2913524403
Cited by
197
References
61
Citations by year
2026: 20 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 14
FWCI
11.44
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Water Research (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • Water Research Foundation (4567)
  • National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center Program for Reinventing the Nation’s Urban Water Infrastructure (1028968)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Urban Stormwater Management Solutions
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Environmental remediation with nanomaterials
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts
Keywords
biochar, woodchip bioreactors, stormwater treatment, groundwater recharge, nitrate removal, heavy metal removal, trace organic contaminants, atrazine, fipronil, TCEP, diuron, benzotriazole, 2,4-D, straw amendment, breakthrough modeling, urban stormwater
MeSH terms
California, Charcoal, Metals, Bioreactors, Denitrification

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review