Sorption and degradation mechanism of tetracyclines by bimetallic Cu/Fe nanoparticle in the aqueous solutions

In this study, sorption and degradation mechanism of tetracyclines by bimetallic Cu/Fe nanoparticle in aqueous media has been investigated. Batch experiments were made to evaluate the effects of experimental variables such aspH, bimetallic particle dosage and temperature on removal efficiency of tetracycline (TC), oxytetracycline (OTC), chlortetracycline (CTC) antibiotics from aqueous media. Additionally,the degradation products of tetracyclines were determined underoptimum operating conditions wheremaximum tetracycline removal was achieved. The results obtained from this study indicate that the removal TC, OTC, CTC depends on pH.The removal efficienciency of tetracycline over 90% were achieved in optimum conditions. The removal of tetracyclines mainly occured due to adsorption on bimetallic particle surface. The Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models were applied to experimental data and the results fitted to Langmuir model. The pseudo-first-order and the pseudo-second-order models were used to express of adsorption kinetics and it was found that the adsorption kinetics were followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Keywords: Tetracycline, Adsorption, Copper/Iron Bimetallic Particle.