The present study develops the sorption model for simulating the effects of pH and temperature on the uptake of cadmium from contaminated water using waste foundry sand (WFS) by allowing the variation of the maximum adsorption capacity and affinity constant. The presence of two acidic functional groups with the same or different affinity is the basis in the derivation of the two models; Model 1 and Model 2 respectively. The developed Bi-Langmuir model with different affinity (Model 2) has a remarkable ability in the description of process under consideration with coefficient of determination > 0.9838 and sum of squared error < 0.08514. This result is proved by FTIR test where the weak acids responsible of cadmium ions removal using WFS sorbent can be represented by surface silanol (O-H) functional groups.

In this paper we presented a case study about the removal of a pharmaceutical contamination (in this case Meropenem) from the environment using organic natural substance (in this case study is Lemna minor). The study proved the efficiency of the used material to remove the contamination of three specific contamination levels of Meropenem. The experimental testing proved the concept, the effect on two vital measures (the chemical oxygen demand – COD, and the root length), which showed improvement in both measures. The degradation mechanism was proven to be not arbitrary by testing the degradation behavior measured practically to four kinetic models. The practical work was found to fit perfectly with the Grau second order model as the simulation work included in the paper shows. Based on this study it can be proven that the dangerous chemicals resulted from the residue of a pharmaceutical substances can be removed efficiently using a totally natural environmental friendly material.