Adsorption of antibiotics by bentonite-chitosan composite: Phenomenological modeling and physical investigation of the adsorption process

The increased use of antibiotics worldwide turned into a serious preoccupation due to their environmental and health impacts. Since the majority of antibiotic residuals are hardly eliminated from wastewater, based on usual methods, other treatments receive considerable attention. Adsorption is known as the most effective method of the treatment of antibiotics. In this paper, the adsorption isotherms of doripenem, ampicillin, and amoxicillin on bentonite-chitosan composite are determined at three temperatures, T = 303.15, 313.15 and 323.15 K, which are used to achieve a theoretical investigation of the removal phenomenon, based on a statistical physics theory. Three analytical models are utilized to describe the AMO, AMP, and DOR adsorption phenomena at the molecular level. From the fitting results, all antibiotic adsorption on a BC adsorbent is associated with the monolayer formation with one type of site. Concerning the number of adsorbed molecules per site (n), it is concluded that multi-docking (n < 1) and multi-molecular (n > 1) phenomena are feasible for AMO, AMP, and DOR adsorption on BC. The adsorption amounts at saturation of the BC adsorbent, deduced by the monolayer model, are found to be 70.4–88.0 mg/g for doripenem, 57.8–79.2 mg/g for ampicillin and 38.6–67.5 mg/g for amoxicillin indicating that the antibiotics adsorption performance of BC was greatly depended on temperature where the adsorption capacities increased with the increment of this operating variable. All adsorption systems are demonstrated by a calculation of the energy of adsorption, considering that the extrication of these pollutants implies physical interactions. The thermodynamic interpretation confirms the spontaneous and feasible nature of the adsorption of the three antibiotics on BC adsorbent. In brief, BC sample is regarded as a promising adsorbent to extract antibiotics from water and presents important potentials to be effected in wastewater handling at industrial level.