ADSORPTIVE REMOVAL OF TETRACYCLINE ANTIBIOTIC FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION USING MAGNETIC NANOCOMPOSITES AS ADSORBENT

Abstract

The gradual increase of antibiotics in aquatic environments poses a serious threat to human health and ecosystems, and removal technology for antibiotics has attracted great interest in recent years. An adsorption method using an adsorbent MNC was designed for the rapid removal of tetracycline (TC) antibiotics from water. The results showed that TCs sorption on adsorbent was highly pH-dependent, and the optimal pH was found to be 4.5-5.6 for tetracycline (TC). The adsorption efficiency could reach 99.8%, suggesting that MNC is an excellent adsorbent for TC removal from water. The adsorption kinetics fitted the pseudo-second-order model perfectly. The adsorption isotherms study showed the maximum sorption capacity. The differences in the removal trends of the three TCs may be attributed to their different pKa values. Moreover, the thermodynamic parameters for the adsorption were estimated, and the ΔH° and ΔG° values indicated the endothermic and spontaneous nature of the sorption process.