Solid sorbent based on natural polymer nanosheets for removal of antibiotics from wastewater

One of the important water contaminants is antibiotics derived from hospitals and pharmaceutical manufacturing sites. Removal of these compounds from water with high efficiency is remained a major challenge in water treatment. Several conventional methods have been used for removing these compounds from waste water but most of them suffer from high costs and energy consumption. Removing of contaminants based on solid sorbents have noticeable properties. They are effective, efficient, and economic methods for water decontamination applications [1, 2].Solid sorbents based on natural polymers were found to be high-performance for removal of antibiotics. In this work, Magnesium oxide-chitosan-graphene oxide (MgO/CS/GO) nanosheets were successfully synthesized and used as a sorbent for efficient removal of ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin from aqueous solutions. The FTIR, BET, XRD, SEM, and TEM were used for characterization of nanocomposite and showed the layer by layer structure for this sorbent. The pH effect, adsorption kinetic, and adsorption isotherm were investigated.The adsorption isotherm of model antibiotics well described with the Langmuir model and the maximum adsorption capacities recorded 500.20 and 430.70 mg g-1 for ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin, respectively. Analysis of kinetic data revealed that the synthesized sorbent followed pseudo-first-order kinetics and the maximum equilibrium was at over 150 and 100 min for the ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin, respectively. Therefore, this is introduced as a simple, economical, and eco-friendly sorbent for developing a high-performance sorbent for removal of antibiotics from wastewater