Cost-Effective and Ecologically Sustainable Carbon Nano-Onions for Antibiotic Removal from Wastewater
Poonam Kumari, Kumud Malika Tripathi, Kamlendra Awasthi, Ragini Gupta
Abstract
The discharge of antibiotics into the aquatic environment can become toxic and hazardous to both human health and the environment. Therefore, it is enormously essential to remove multiple antibiotics from the wastewater. In this work, carbon nano-onions (CNOs) were synthesized and used as effective adsorbents for the removal of 97% norfloxacin (NOR) and 99% tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) antibiotics from wastewater. CNOs showed good adsorption efficiency, and the equilibrium period was also short. The adsorption studies were investigated with adsorbent dosages, adsorbate concentration, and pH. The maximum adsorption capacity ( q max ) was found to be 416.66 and 344.82 mg g –1 for TCH and NOR, respectively. CNOs have also shown admirable removal efficiency toward NOR and TCH from natural water samples such as dam water (97% TCH and 94% NOR), tap water (96% NOR and 93% TCH), and lake water (95% NOR and 93% TCH).