A manufacturing method is proposed for a sorbent material comprised of functional ceramic loess balls mixed with food waste and regenerated activated carbon. The physical characteristics and adsorption performance were also evaluated. Adding activated carbon improved the porosity and increased the specific surface area of the balls. The iodine-adsorbing capacity was evaluated with different mixing ratios of activated carbon. The capacity was improved as the mixing ratio was increased. The activated carbon was regenerated through a high-temperature burning process after reaching the breakthrough point. A column test was conducted to examine the methylene blue adsorption, and the adsorption rate also increased with the activated carbon mixing ratio. At mixing ratios of above 5%, the adsorption rate showed a high increase in the early stage and reached equilibrium after 6 minutes of reaction. However, it was impossible to reach the equilibrium state without activated carbon in the loess balls. Thus, it is apparent that activated carbon plays an important role in improving the adsorption efficiency. The optimum mixing ratio of activated carbon was 5%. At this ratio, the iodine adsorption rate showed a moderate rise, the adsorption efficiency was relatively high, and the methylene blue adsorption reached equilibrium.

Experiments were conducted to propose manufacturing methods to make loess ball using food wastes. Food wastes were used to improve porosity and increase specific surface area of loess ball. Red clay, food wastes and clay were used as main raw materials in making loess ball and these were mixed with varying ratio in order to find out optimum mixing ratio. The optimum mixing ratio of food wastes is evaluated to amount to 30%. In this case, 33.61 kg/cm2 of compressive strength, 65.13% of porosity, 50.04% of absorbing ratio, and 6.302 m2/g of specific surface area are obtained. When evaluating cross section and the appearance of red clay ball made up of 30% food wastes through a visual inspection and SEM photograph, it can be observed that a lot of pores are formed across the red clay ball due to the volatilization of moisture and organic matter in food wastes during the high-temperature burning. Taking into account compressive strength, porosity, absorbing ratio, specific surface area, and SEM photograph altogether, the optimum mixing ratio of loess, food wastes, and clay in the loess ball were 30%, 50%, and 20%, respectively. When evaluating the cross-section and outer appearance of the loess ball that comprise 30% of food wastes by SEM photography, it can be concluded that the optimum mixing ratio of loess, food wastes, and clay in the loess ball amounts to 30%, 50%, and 20%, respectively. Compressive strength of the manufactured loess ball amounts to 42.52 kg/cm2, which is 26.5% higher than the values obtained in the condition when the loess ball made without food wastes. However, the values of porosity, absorbing ratio, and specific surface area are somewhat lower than the corresponding values obtained in the condition when the loess ball was manufactured without food wastes.