Food industrial biowaste-based magnetic activated carbons as sustainable adsorbents for anthropogenic mercury emissions

Bio-derived magnetic activated carbons from industrial chestnut shell waste have been obtained through a novel, optimized and sustainable methodology where impregnation, pyrolysis, acid washing or other intermediate steps commonly used in the activation process were eliminated saving time, energy and costs. The resulting materials (MACs) were obtained at 220–800 °C showed interesting properties: textural (SBET up to 568 m2 g-1) and magnetic (different iron species developed), depending on the activation temperature employed.