Adsorption of pharmaceutical chemicals using biocomposite compounds

The present thesis considered the collaboration of alginate (Alg) beads and activated carbon (AK) on the adsorption performance of tetracycline from wastewater. The main aim of the current thesis is to test adsorption behaviour of different amount of activated carbon dopped alginate beads for tetracycline adsorption. The characterization of synthesized AK dopped Alg beads were determined using FT-IR, TGA, DSC, SEM and XPS analysis, adsorption isotherms, kinetics, thermodynamics, adsorption mechanism, reusability were carried out. The experimental results showed that when AC was dopped into the raw ALG beads, the tetracycline removal performance increased from 29.0% to 100.0% within 5 hours. Langmuir, D-R, Temkin, Halsey, and Harkins-Jura isotherm models were applied for tetracycline adsorption and model parameters were determined. Adsorption kinetics was investigated by pseudo-first order, pseudo-second order, Elovich, Weber–Morris, and Bangham models and tetracycline adsorption onto activated carbon dopped alginate beads represented by pseudo second-order kinetic model. It can be concluded from all results of the presenting thesis that the low-cost activated carbon dopped alginate beads as an easily recoverable biocomposites have a considerable potential on the adsorption of pharmaceutical compounds from wastewater.