From these experiments, we could conclude that shell and wood
ashes, as well as pine ashes calcined to 500 °C in the laboratory, are
not suitable to remove PCBs from contaminated fish oils, since the
removal rates were less than 8.8% for dl-PCBs. However, pine ashes
calcined to 800 °C in the laboratory presented moderate elimination
ratios for dl-PCBs and PCB11 (37 and 58%, respectively). Therefore, the
origin of these sustainable materials could have an important role in
the adsorption. The three activated carbons studied showed higher
removal rates for non-ortho PCBs and PCB11, between 57–95% and
59–74%, respectively. Only 10% removal was observed for marker
PCBs. These results were also very satisfactory from a toxicological and
nutritional point of view, because the use of adsorbents did not affect
their nutritive properties.We can conclude that adsorption with adsorbents
depends on the geometry of PCB congeners, aswell as both type of
adsorption material and their origin, and that several sorption cycles
would be needed