Facile synthesis and implications of novel hydrophobic materials: Newer insights of pharmaceuticals removal

Abstract

The residual escape of pharmaceuticals from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) is a serious environmental concern due to the adverse effects towards living organisms. Therefore, it is important to devise the newer technologies for safe and efficient elimination of emerging micro-pollutants from effluents of existing water treatment plants. Bentonite is grafted with 3-mercaptopropyletrimethoxy silane by facile one-pot method to obtain dense composite material (MPTS/BENT).The materials are characterized by the FT-IR, XRD, BET and SEM/EDX analytical tools. Various parametric experiments conducted for the removal of tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) and triclosan (TCS) using MPTS/BENT under batch experimentations. Further, column adsorption experiments have been performed.The incorporation of organosilane with bentonite is confirmed by FT-IR and EDX analyses. BET surface area analysis showed that the surface area of MPTS/BENT is significantly small compared with pristine clay. pH dependent sorption of TCH and TCS is almost unaffected within the pH 3.0 to 7.0. Rapid uptake of TCH and TCS by MPTS/BENT followed PSO kinetics. High percentage removal was achieved at wide concentration range of pollutants. The uptake of TCH and TCS is unaffected increasing the background electrolyte concentrations for 1000 times. Column experiment confirmed the high efficiency of MPTS/BENT towards these pollutants. Moreover, the removal of TCH/or TCS from real water sample at varied pH values showed that the synthesized composite is selective and efficient towards these micro-pollutants. This study showed that the synthesize material, i.e., MPTS/BENT could be efficiently employed for the additional purification of WWTP effluents.