Purpose Pharmaceuticals are becoming one of the largest environmental concerns when it comes to the water treatment industry. Increased usage of these chemicals poses a serious risk to ecology and human health due to their leakage into surface waters. In the present study, carbide derived carbon (CDC) was used for the first time as a new adsorbent to remove ibuprofen from synthetic water and wastewater effluent. Methods The morphology, chemical composition, surface area and surface charge of the CDC particles were investigated using the transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, BET analysis and zeta potential measurements. The effects of CDC dosage, temperature, initial pH and agitation speed on the adsorption process were examined by using batch adsorption experiments. Moreover, the adsorption kinetics, thermodynamics, and isotherms were investigated. Results Adsorption and kinetic equilibrium data demonstrate that the adsorption of ibuprofen onto the CDC obeys the Langmuir isotherm model and the kinetics follow the pseudo-2nd order mechanism. The thermodynamic results reveal that ibuprofen adsorption is endothermic and spontaneous. The ibuprofen removal by CDC was mainly controlled by the electrostatic forces at high pH of the feed solution and by the dispersive interactions in acidic media. The ibuprofen removal is promoted at high temperature, high agitation speed and low pH. The highest adsorption capacity of ibuprofen onto the CDC was 367 mg/g at pH 3. Furthermore, the CDC efficiently removed ibuprofen from spiked treated sewage effluent. Conclusions The obtained data indicate that the CDC provides a fast and efficient adsorptive removal of ibuprofen both from a model aqueous solution and treated sewage effluent.
Presence of cyanotoxins in drinking water poses a great risk to public health. Elevated levels of cyanotoxins in drinking water can lead to acute gastroenteritis, liver diseases, and neurotoxicity. In this study, drinking water samples were collected across the eastern part of Qatar and screened using a rapid assay to detect the presence of microcystins and nodularins. The results showed that the toxin concentrations in all the water samples were below the WHO prescribed limit of 1 μg/L. Considering a worst-case scenario, toxin removal efficiencies were evaluated using ozone and ozone-hydrogen peroxide by spiking drinking water samples with microcystin-LR (MC-LR) at different oxidant dosages, toxin concentrations, water temperatures, and total organic carbon. It was found that peroxone-treated water samples have better MC-LR removal efficiency than molecular ozone at lower oxidant dosages. Nevertheless, at higher oxidant dosages, both ozonation and peroxone oxidation methods showed a similar removal efficiency. The experimental results also clearly indicated that variation in water temperature between 22 °C and 35 °C has minimal effect on the removal efficiency in both the treatment methods. It was also confirmed that the presence of organic carbon has a more profound detrimental impact than water temperature for toxin removal.
Heterogeneous catalytic ozonation is an effective approach to degrade refractory organic pollutants in water. However, ozonation catalysts with combined merits of high activity, good reusability and low cost for practical industrial applications are still rare. This study aims to develop an efficient, stable and economic ozonation catalyst for the degradation of Ibuprofen, a pharmaceutical compound frequently detected as a refractory pollutant in treated wastewaters. The novel three-dimensional network-structured catalyst, comprising of δ-MnO2 nanosheets grown on woven carbon microfibers (MnO2 nanosheets/carbon microfiber), was synthesized via a facile hydrothermal approach. Catalytic ozonation performance of Ibuprofen removal in water using the new catalyst proves a significant enhancement, where Ibuprofen removal efficiency of close to 90% was achieved with a catalyst loading of 1% (w/v). In contrast, conventional ozonation was only able to achieve 65% removal efficiency under the same operating condition. The enhanced performance with the new catalyst could be attributed to its significantly increased available surface active sites and improved mass transfer of reaction media, as a result of the special surface and structure properties of this new three-dimensional network-structured catalyst. Moreover, the new catalyst displays excellent stability and reusability for ibuprofen degradation over successive reaction cycles. The facile synthesis method and low-cost materials render the new catalyst high potential for industrial scaling up. With the combined advantages of high efficiency, high stability, and low cost, this study sheds new light for industrial applications of ozonation catalysts.
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