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Adsorption of five emerging contaminants on activated carbon from aqueous medium: kinetic characteristics and computational modeling for plausible mechanism

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Abstract

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) do not have standard regulations for discharge in the environment and are categorized as contaminants of emerging concern as they pose potential threats to ecology as well as humans even at low concentrations. Conventional treatment processes generally employed in the wastewater treatment plants are not adequately engineered for effective removal of PPCPs. Identifying cost-effective tertiary treatment is therefore, important for complete removal of PPCPs from wastewater prior to discharge or reuse. Present study demonstrates adsorption using granular-activated carbon (GAC) as a possible tertiary treatment for simultaneous removal of five PPCPs from aqueous media. Adsorbent was characterized in terms of morphology, surface area, surface charge distribution, and presence of functional groups. Performance of GAC was investigated for sorption of three hydrophilic (ciprofloxacin, acetaminophen, and caffeine) and two hydrophobic (benzophenone and irgasan) PPCPs from aqueous solution varying the process parameters (initial concentration, adsorbent dose, pH, agitation time). Langmuir isotherm model (correlation coefficients (R2): 0.993 to 0.998) appeared to fit the isotherm data better than Temkin isotherm model for these adsorbates. Adsorption efficiencies of these compounds (8.26 to 20.40 mg g−1) were in accordance with their log Kow values. While the adsorption kinetics was best explained in terms of a pseudo-second-order kinetic model, the data suggested that adsorption mechanism was mainly governed by the intraparticle diffusion. The role of physical factors like molecular volume, molecular size, and area of targeted PPCPs were investigated through computational studies which in turn can help predicting their uptake onto GAC.

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Acknowledgments

The authors express their gratitude to Ms. Ranjita Das and Mr. Deepak Panchal for helping in the data analysis and Dr. Sachin A. Mandavgane for providing laboratory facilities for this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, 440010, India

    Archana Rao & Anupama Kumar

  2. Director’s Research Cell, CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI), Nagpur, 440020, India

    Rita Dhodapkar

  3. Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, 201002, India

    Rita Dhodapkar & Sukdeb Pal

  4. Wastewater Technology Division, CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI), Nagpur, 440020, India

    Sukdeb Pal

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  1. Archana Rao
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  2. Anupama Kumar
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  3. Rita Dhodapkar
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  4. Sukdeb Pal
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Contributions

Archana Rao: investigation, methodology and writing (original draft preparation). Anupama Kumar: supervision, conceptualization and editing. Rita Dhodapkar: co-supervision, conceptualization and editing. Sukdeb Pal: formal analysis and editing.

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Correspondence to Anupama Kumar or Rita Dhodapkar.

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Highlights

• Granular-activated carbon as a potential material for the tertiary treatment of water/wastewater for simultaneous removal of PPCPs.

• Adsorption studies and computational modeling to understand the physicochemical factors governing the rate of adsorption of the targeted PPCPs on GAC and adsorption capacities.

• Interpreting the influence of pH on the simultaneous adsorption of PPCPs on GAC in terms of surface chemistry of adsorbate and adsorbent.

• Application of optimized batch mode experimentation to real-world surface water sample.

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Rao, A., Kumar, A., Dhodapkar, R. et al. Adsorption of five emerging contaminants on activated carbon from aqueous medium: kinetic characteristics and computational modeling for plausible mechanism. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 21347–21358 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-12014-1

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