Development of new materials from industrial waste and biomass for application in catalysis

Electric arc furnace (EAF) dust is a waste generated in the steelmaking process through the electric arc furnace and is classified as hazardous waste. It is estimated that 15 kg to 20 kg of electric arc furnace are generated for each ton of steel produced. EAF dust has a high cost of proper management and it is necessary to develop new technologies for its reuse. In this work biomass (B) of papaya peel (dried at 100 ºC, without previous treatment) was used as catalytic support for electric arc furnace dust (EAF). Wet impregnated in proportions of 5%, 9%, and 13% were done and the materials were named according to the impregnated content. The materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analysis (Figure 1), which confirmed the insertion of EAF in the surface of biomass by the impregnation process. Then, the materials were applied in quinoline (QN) and dibenzothiophene (DBT) removal, petroleum contaminants, with removal capacity of the materials reaching values up to 1.412 mg g-1 of QN removal and 2.070 mg g-1 of DBT removal (Figure 2). Thus, it is concluded that the use of biomass of papaya peel as catalytic support has proved to be a cheap and promising possibility for environmental remediation, presenting good results for the removal of petroleum contaminants. In addition, the materials impregnated with EAF showed excellent results, above those described in the literature.