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Distribution behavior and risk assessment of metals in bio-oils produced by liquefaction/pyrolysis of sewage sludge

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Abstract

The distribution behaviors of metals in bio-oils derived from sewage sludge (SS) by liquefaction with different solvents (ethanol, methanol, or acetone) and by pyrolysis at different temperatures (550–850 °C) were investigated. The concentrations of crust metals (K, Na, Ca, Mg, Fe, and Al) in bio-oils were much higher than those of the anthropogenic metals (Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd, Cr, Ni, V, Mn, Ba, Co, Ti, Sn, As, and Hg), but the anthropogenic metals were more inclined to distribute in bio-oil phase compared with crust metals. The anthropogenic metals in bio-oils can be divided in three groups in terms of the distribution similarities according to Cluster analysis: (A) Cu, Co, Ni, V, and Sn; (B) Cr, Ti, Mn, and Ba; (C) Pb, Cd, As, Hg, and Zn. Cu, Cr, Hg, Cd, V, Co, and Sn distributed in the liquefaction/pyrolysis bio-oils accounted for as high as 5–20 % of the metals in SS and were evaluated “moderate enrichment” by the enrichment factors method. According to the potential ecological risk index (PERI) method, Hg presented very high risk, Cu presented moderate risk, and Cd presented low to moderate risk; and the overall risk levels of these bio-oils were very high risk (except P550, presented considerable risk).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 21276069 and 71221061, and the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education, China (No. 20120161130002).

Compliance with ethical standards

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, People’s Republic of China

    Lijian Leng, Xingzhong Yuan, Xin Peng, Hongmei Chen, Hou Wang, Lele Wang & Guangming Zeng

  2. Key Laboratory of Environment Biology and Pollution Control, Ministry of Education, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, People’s Republic of China

    Lijian Leng, Xingzhong Yuan, Xin Peng, Hongmei Chen, Hou Wang, Lele Wang & Guangming Zeng

  3. School of Land Resources and Environment, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, 330045, People’s Republic of China

    Huajun Huang

  4. School of Business, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaohong Chen

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  1. Lijian Leng
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  2. Xingzhong Yuan
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  4. Xin Peng
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  7. Lele Wang
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  8. Xiaohong Chen
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  9. Guangming Zeng
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Correspondence to Xingzhong Yuan.

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Responsible editor: Angeles Blanco

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Leng, L., Yuan, X., Huang, H. et al. Distribution behavior and risk assessment of metals in bio-oils produced by liquefaction/pyrolysis of sewage sludge. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 18945–18955 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-5031-4

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