Potentiality of Prepared Activated Carbon as an Adsorbent in Removal of Tetracycline from Wastewater

Abstract

In this specific study, the elimination of antibiotics from wastewater accomplished by the process of adsorption as tetracycline serves as the pollutant of interest and commercial activated carbon (AC) as an adsorbent for removal of pharmaceutical micropollutants. The extremely porous nature, high adsorption effectiveness, low cost, and environmentally favourable qualities of activated carbon led to its selection as the material of choice for the investigation. In this work, the adsorption of tetracycline by activated carbon that had been manufactured commercially was investigated. Throughout the batch investigation, the following parameters were held stable: time, pH, adsorbent concentration, adsorbate concentration, and temperature -25º C. Experimentation revealed that the optimum removal effectiveness of 90% could be attained when the pH was kept in the acidic range (between 3 and 7), the contact period is 1 hour and the adsorbent dose is 5 mg per 20 ml. The Langmuir Isotherm curve provided the most satisfactory explanation for the experimental results. The specific study focuses on the analysis of potentiality of the prepared activated carbon in removing pharmaceutical pollutants in wastewater which is not being experimented much. The method was tried on real time sample and was found effectual with a removal efficiency of 87%.