Engineered biocarbon composites for managing emerging contaminants

As concerns about emerging contaminants grow, there is an increasing need for technologies that can remove them effectively, sustainably and at a reasonable cost. One promising approach is to use engineered porous biocarbon materials, such as biochar, whose surfaces can be tailored to capture specific contaminants.

In this seminar, Dr Majid Sedighi will present research on biochar-based materials and composites for removing emerging contaminants, including microplastics and antibiotics. He will introduce a new class of green-synthesised metal-organic framework (MOF)-biochar composites and explore how their properties can be tuned to improve contaminant removal.

The talk will focus in particular on the removal of the antibiotic cefixime, including the materials’ adsorption and regeneration performance. Dr Sedighi will also discuss their potential for cost-effective, scalable and multifunctional water treatment.

Dr Majid Sedighi is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Geo-Environmental Engineering at the University of Manchester and a civil engineer with 25 years of experience across industry and academia. He leads the Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering Research Group in the Department of Civil Engineering and Management.

After completing his PhD at Cardiff University, UK, he worked as a UNESCO Research Fellow in Sustainable Geoenvironmental Engineering before joining the University of Manchester in 2015. His research focuses on the containment and removal of contaminants, including the geological disposal of high-level nuclear waste and the development of porous materials for remediating emerging contaminants.

Over the past ten years, Dr Sedighi and his team have developed cost-effective, biochar-based solutions for removing contaminants from water and tackling emerging contaminants of concern.

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