Enhanced Removal of Antibiotic in Wastewater Using Liquid Nitrogen-Treated Carbon Material: Material Properties and Removal Mechanisms

Yaohui Wu, Wen Liu, Yonghong Wang, Xinjiang Hu, Zhengping He, Xiaoyong Chen and Yunlin Zhao
Additional contact information
Yaohui Wu: College of Life Science and Technology, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
Wen Liu: College of Life Science and Technology, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
Yonghong Wang: College of Life Science and Technology, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
Xinjiang Hu: College of Life Science and Technology, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
Zhengping He: College of Life Science and Technology, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
Xiaoyong Chen: College of Life Science and Technology, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
Yunlin Zhao: College of Life Science and Technology, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 12, 1-14

Abstract: Antibiotic residues in the aquatic environment have become a global problem posing a serious threat to the environment and an inherent health risk to human beings. In this study, experiments were carried to investigate the use of carbon material modified by liquid nitrogen treatment (CM1) and carbon material unmodified by liquid nitrogen treatment (CM2) as adsorbents for the removal of the antibiotic ampicillin from aqueous solutions. The properties of the CMs (CM1 and CM2) and the effects of variations of the key operating parameters on the removal process were examined, and kinetic, isothermal and thermodynamic experimental data were studied. The results showed that CM1 had larger specific surface area and pore size than CM2. The ampicillin adsorption was more effective on CM1 than that on CM2, and the maximum adsorption capacity of ampicillin onto CM1 and CM2 was 206.002 and 178.423 mg/g, respectively. The kinetic data revealed that the pesudo-second order model was more suitable for the fitting of the experimental kinetic data and the isothermal data indicated that the Langmuir model was successfully correlated with the data. The adsorption of ampicillin was a spontaneous reaction dominated by thermodynamics. In synthetic wastewater, CM1 and CM2 showed different removal rates for ampicillin: 92.31% and 86.56%, respectively. For an adsorption-based approach, carbon material obtained by the liquid nitrogen treatment method has a stronger adsorption capacity, faster adsorption, and was non-toxic, therefore, it could be a promising adsorbent, with promising prospects in environmental pollution remediation applications.

Keywords: liquid nitrogen; modified carbon; ampicillin; adsorption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2652/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2652/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:12:p:2652-:d:185550

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().