Promoting the circular economy: Valorization of a residue from industrial char to activated carbon with potential environmental applications Pereira Gómez, Ledicia Castillo Ramos, Ventura Calero De Hoces, Francisca Mónica González Egido, Sergio Martín Lara, María Ángeles Rodríguez Solís, Rafael Char Activated carbon Adsorption Carbon Dioxide Heavy metals Pharmaceuticals Grant CPP 2021-008551 funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and, as appropriate, by “ERDF a way of making Europe”, by “ERDF/EU”, by the “European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR”. They also thank the support provided for the external services of investigation of the University of Granada (“Centro de Instrumentación Científica”, CIC). Finally, the authors also are thankful to “Neoliquid Advanced Biofuels and Biochemicals S.L.” for providing the industrial chars from municipal solid waste, “Grupo Layna Gestión de Residuos S.L.” for providing the industrial char from biomass waste, and “Ecocuadrado S.L.” for providing municipal and industrial solid waste. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada/CBUA. Pyrolysis of residues enriched with carbon, such as in agroforestry or industrial activities, has been postulated as an emerging technology to promote the production of biofuels, contributing to the circular economy and minimizing waste. However, during the pyrolysis processes a solid fraction residue is generated. This work aims to study the viability of these chars to develop porous carbonaceous materials that can be used for environmental applications. Diverse chars discharged by an industrial pyrolysis factory have been activated with KOH. Concretely, the char residues came from the pyrolysis of olive stone, pine, and acacia splinters, spent residues fuel, and cellulose artificial casings. The changes in the textural, structural, and composition characteristics after the activation process were studied by N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms, scanning electron microscopy, FTIR, elemental analysis, and XPS. A great porosity was developed, SBET within 776–1186 m2 g−1 and pore volume of 0.37–0.59 cm3 g−1 with 70–90% of micropores contribution. The activated chars were used for the adsorption of CO2, leading to CO2 maximum uptakes of 90–130 mg g−1. There was a good correlation between the CO2 uptake with microporosity and oxygenated surface groups of the activated chars. Moreover, their ability to adsorption of contaminants in aqueous solution was also evaluated. Concretely, there was studied the adsorption of aqueous heavy metals, i.e., Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn, and organic pollutants of emerging concern such as caffeine, diclofenac, and acetaminophen. 2024-04-01T09:01:03Z 2024-04-01T09:01:03Z 2024-04-20 journal article L. Pereira et al. Promoting the circular economy: Valorization of a residue from industrial char to activated carbon with potential environmental applications. Journal of Environmental Management 356 (2024) 120753. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.120753 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/90247 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.120753 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Elsevier