CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

This article shows how pine sawdust residues can be used to adsorb nickel ions from synthetic solutions and thento produce porous bricks for civil construction using a mixture of natural clay and biomass containing the adsorbedmetals. The adsorption tests were performed by mixing NiCl2 solutions with pine sawdust during a fixed stirringperiod of 24 h. The set was filtered and the filtrate was analysed. Highest efficiency adsorbate/adsorbent ratio was50 mL of 1 M NiCl2 solution and 20 g L− 1 of pine sawdust. This was the contaminated biomass sample used in themanufacture of the bricks. This paper analyses the properties of the bricks achieved and compares them with brickswithout added biomass, porous bricks containing zinc and commercial bricks. The obtained values of bulk density,apparent specific weight, apparent porosity, water absorption, apparent volume, weight loss on ignition, compressivestrength, flexural modulus of rupture and efficiency retention of metal in the brick, demonstrate that the ceramicpieces obtained are optimal for construction.