Adsorption of antibiotics from wastewater by cabbage-based N, P co-doped mesoporous carbon materials

Research on low-polluting, economical, and reliable antibiotic adsorption materials is of great significance for reducing pollution in the pharmaceutical and aquaculture industries. Herein, N, P co-doped carbon material (PCC500) with a high specific surface area of 1400 m2/g and a high mesoporous ratio of 89.9% were prepared from cabbage waste by H3PO4 hydrothermal combined with activation. PCC500 showed good adsorption performance for various antibiotics, including chloramphenicol (CHL), tetracycline (TC), ofloxacin (OFX) and erythromycin (ERY). 99% removal efficiency and 247 mg/g adsorption capacity of TC on PCC500 were obtained at 298 K (C0 = 50 mg/L), and 471 mg/g of the maximum adsorption capacity of was achieved at 318 K. The adsorption kinetics and thermodynamic analysis indicated that there was chemisorption during the adsorption process. A series of characterizations including SEM, EDS, N2 adsorption and desorption, FTIR, XPS showed that the abundant pore structure and P, N functional groups are important factors affecting the adsorption performance, and the graphite-N and C3-PO structures in PCC500 could be the important active sites responsible for antibiotic chemisorption. Moreover, PCC500 exhibits good resistance to impurity ions and cyclic stability.