REMOVAL OF CHLORAMPHENICOL COMPOUNDS USING HYDROCHAR FROM DRIED LEAVES

Abstract

Pharmaceutical industries’ wastewater contains numerous contaminants including chloramphenicol (CAP) that harm human and aquatic lives which require the wastewater to be treated via adsorption. Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) aids in producing hydrochar that can be converted into activated carbon at lower operating conditions to increase carbon porosity and decrease production costs. In this study, dry leaves were hydrothermally carbonized to produce hydrochar which was then activated into activated carbon prior to the removal of CAP. For CAP batch adsorption on resultant hydrochar, various operating parameters, including initial CAP concentration (10 mg/L to 50 mg/L) and solution pH (2 to 10) were utilized. Due to the high driving force for efficient mass transfer, the adsorption capacity of the initial CAP concentration increased as an increase in the adsorption capacity with a maximum value of 35.70 mg/g. The presence of the OH^- group enables the positive charge of CAP to attach easily to the adsorbent, thus making the basic conditions more favorable as opposed to the acidic conditions with maximum adsorption of 35.82 mg/g at pH 10. It was found that the Freundlich isotherm and pseudo-second order kinetic models suit well with the experimental data. Also, the rate-controlling step in this adsorption is chemical adsorption. According to the results, activated dried leaves derived hydrochar is a promising and cheap adsorbent for the removal of CAP from effluent wastewater.