Paper Title
Agricultural Waste-Based Biochar as a Low-Cost Sorbent for Water Treatment

Abstract
A real change is emerging in waste material management and wastewater treatment technology due to the large amount of waste produced worldwide and the need for low-cost adsorbents to minimize wastewater treatment costs. Adsorbents are an effective wastewater treatment technology that reduces waste in the environment. Due to their high costs, several commercial adsorbents, such as silica gel and activated carbon(AC) have restricted applications. Agricultural wastes, however, do have the ability to be reused as low-cost adsorbents in wastewater treatment. In this study, various agricultural waste samples were tested and compared as regards to their adsorption of methylene blue dye. Date seeds, banana peels, Rhamnus seeds, and coffee residue were evaluated after physical-chemical activation using KOH. The highest adsorption capacity of the four distinct agricultural wastes was determined, and the activated date seed achieved the highest methylene blue (MB) adsorption capacity with 135 mg MB/ g. This is equivalent to approximately 70% of the capacity of commercial activated carbon. The findings revealed that there is a considerable difference in adsorption capacity between different types of agricultural wastes. In addition of the environmental benefits of agricultural waste management, a brief economic comparison showed that the cost of the production of activated biochar is lower than the cost of commercial activated carbon by 33 percent. Keywords - Agricultural Waste; Dye Removal; Low-cost Adsorbent; Wastewater Treatment