Norfloxacin adsorption and subsequent degradation on ball-milling tailored N-doped biochar

N-doping is an effective way to modify biochar for enhancing the adsorption capacity. The synthesis of N-doped biochar by the ball-milling method has been attractive due to its facile and eco-friendly approach with low energy consumption. However, the commonly used N-precursor NH3·H2O is environmentally harmful. It is needed to prepare safe and non-toxic N-doped biochar for large-scale production. Here, a urea N-doped biochar (U-MBC) was prepared by the ball-milling method and used for norfloxacin (NOR) removal. The results showed that U-MBC exhibited almost 4-fold higher adsorption capacity for NOR than pristine biochar in a wide pH range (3-9). The adsorption enhancement was owing to the enhancement of H-bonds, π-π electron donor-acceptor, and pore-filling interactions due to the N-doping and ball-milling method. Additionally, 89% of adsorbed NOR can be further removed after 6 h milling. The regenerated U-MBC still had a good adsorption capacity (46.27 mg g-1) and performed well in three cycles. The knowledge gained from this study could encourage researchers to use urea or similar safe N-precursors with the ball-milling method for the large-scale production of N-doped biochar to remove antibiotic organic pollutants in the environment.