Development of a magnetic activated carbon adsorbent for the removal of common pharmaceuticals in wastewater treatment

Abstract

This work aims to study the use of a powdered activated carbon with magnetic properties as adsorbent to remove common pharmaceuticals in wastewater treatment. This hybrid material was prepared from powdered activated carbon that was combined with iron oxide nanoparticles and was characterized by infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffractometry. It was also assessed for its adsorption ability using ibuprofen and amoxicillin as model drugs. Under the tested conditions, adsorption equilibrium was reached at 160 min for both drugs, with removal rates of 95% for the former and 90% for the latter. Adsorption data were fit to several adsorption kinetics and isotherm models. The adsorption of ibuprofen seems to follow a pseudo-order n kinetics and fits best the Redlich-Peterson isotherm model, whilst that of amoxicillin shows best fits to the Bangham kinetics and Temkin isotherm models. The new adsorbent also proved to be efficient in an urban wastewater spiked with both drugs and to keep its adsorption ability upon regeneration by desorption.

Integrated Process of Immediate One-Step Lime Precipitation, Atmospheric Carbonation, Constructed Wetlands, or Adsorption for Industrial Wastewater Treatment: A Review

“…Additionally, the authors also observed that there were no significant differences in COD removal after filtration and magnetic separation for both adsorbents with incorporated iron oxide nanoparticles. Vargues et al [232] used PAC and PAC combined with iron oxide nanoparticles (PACMAG) as adsorbents to remove common pharmaceuticals (ibuprofen and amoxicillin). These authors observed that the kinetic models and the isothermal models were different between PAC and PACMAG for both drugs, which means that the incorporation of iron oxide nanoparticles can influence the adsorption mechanism.…”

Preparation of Synthetic Clays to Remove Phosphates and Ibuprofen in Water

“…where, C 0 is the initial adsorbent concentration in solution (mg/L), V is the solution volume (L), m is the weight of adsorbent used per liter of solution (g/L), q t (mg/g) is the amount of adsorbent retained at time t, and α (<1) and k 0 are constants. The Bangham model was tested to adsorb pharmaceutical compounds [35,36].…”