• Pecan nuts: these agronomic conditions also promote the production of high quality, counter-

seasonal pecan nuts. Commercial pecan cultivation in Argentina has grown exponentially

in recent years, which in the medium term will make Argentina one of the world’s top three

producers of this nut and the world’s leading exporter of high value-added pecan-based products

(Frusso 2013).

• Wheat: On the other hand, wheat is one of the most widely grown cereals in the world. In

Argentina, around 15.5 million tons of wheat are produced annually. Seventy-five per cent is

exported and approximately 4.6 million tons are milled to produce 3.4 million tons of flour.

As by-products of this process, approximately 500,000 tons of bran and germ are extracted

annually and used almost entirely for animal feed (Apro et al. 2004).

• Banana: Banana cultivation is the most prominent of Argentina’s tropical crops, with an annual

production ranging from 180,000 to 205,000 tons, with bananas being the most consumed fruit

in Argentina with an annual per capita average of 12 kg (Molina et al. 2015).

• Moringa oleifera: Moringa oleifera, a shrubby plant native to India, is little known in

South America, although it is now abundant throughout the tropics. It is a hardy species that

requires little horticultural attention and grows rapidly, recognized for its nutritional and

medicinal characteristics, as well as being used in some water purification processes (Folkard

and Sutherland 1996). Different parts of the plant are usable raw materials, the leaves, the

undeveloped pods and seeds. Obtaining products and by-products generates around 80% by

crop weight of waste, the husks during dehulling the seed or the green stalks are discarded

during the obtaining of the leaf for infusions use. Currently, in Argentina there is a growing

wave of Moringa cultivation with a large generation of new products that in the short term will

result in a large amount of waste to be disposed of.

The waste from the agri-food industry proposed in this work will be used as biosorbents to

study the retention of metal ions from aqueous effluents. In the case of liquid effluents, the aim

is to reach the polluting discharge levels required by local legislation, considering industries such

as tanning or electroplating. In the case of solid effluents, the goal is to achieve eco-friendly final

disposal.

The design of the Reactor App software were intended to simplify the calculations and to

give as a result the volume of the continuous reactor to be used in a first approximation from data

obtained with few tests carried out on batch reactors. In this way, a first scale-up can be carried out

in a simplified way. As a second objective, Reactor App aims to facilitate the processing of the data

derived from the continuous tests.

3.2 Initial Considerations

The total adsorption capacity (mg adsorbate/g adsorbent) was calculated by Eq. 3.1 and the removal

percentage (%R) by Eq. 3.2 (Boeykens et al. 2017):

(C0 – Cf)

q0 =

V

Eq. 3.1

m

(C0 – Cf)

%R =

Eq. 3.2

C0

where, q

–1

a ^{(mg g ) is the adsorption capacity, C}

0 ^{(mg L–1) is the P or Crinitial concentration, C}f ^{is the}

P or Cr final concentration (after adsorption), m (g) is the adsorbent mass and V (L) is the volume

of adsorption solution.

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Bioremediation for Sustainable Environmental Cleanup