Decontamination of water from antibiotic drugs or their metabolites
using an adsorption technique represents a great challenge with respect
to high adsorption capacity and cost effectiveness. Antibiotic drugs
are generally released in water resources after human use, and these
may be classified under the category of hazardous materials or persistent
organic pollutants. Therefore, the present study is aimed to explore
the removal of doxycycline (DCN) antibiotic drug by novel assembled
chemically modified metal–organic frameworks in the form of
NTiO2/NiSA-(Si-TETA)-Cu(II) nanocomposite. Effects of some
parameters such as pH (2–10 range), contact time (1–60
min), nanocomposite doses (5–100 mg), drug concentrations (5–100
mg L–1), ionic strength (0.1–1.0 mol L–1 of NaCl), and reaction temperatures (25–55
°C) on the removal efficiency of DCN drug have been investigated,
optimized, and evaluated. A complex formation between DCN drug and
NTiO2/NiSA-(Si-TETA)-Cu(II) nanocomposite has been proposed
as the contributing master mechanism, as carefully confirmed from
the kinetics, isotherm, and thermodynamic studies. The kinetics and
isotherm data were described by the pseudo-second-order and Langmuir
models. The maximum identified adsorption capacity values were as
high as 473.05, 562.08, and 682.15 mg g–1 at 25,
40, and 50 °C, respectively. The removal efficiency values of
DCN drug from water matrices by the action of NTiO2/NiSA-(Si-TETA)-Cu(II)
nanocomposite were in the range 97.05 to 99.71% to elucidate that
the NTiO2/NiSA-(Si-TETA)-Cu(II) nanocomposite can be applied
for the removal of DCN drug from real wastewater samples.