Novel eco-friendly sorbent derived from Acer pseudoplatanus seed for atenolol removal from pharmaceutical wastewater

Abstract

In this paper, a novel sycamore maple seeds based activated carbon was synthesized, characterized and examined for sorption of atenolol from aqueous solutions. This low cost sorbent with great regeneration ability is shown to be a good option for fast uptake of atenolol in high extent due to its significant reactivity and developed mesoporous structure. For interpretation of the equilibrium data, Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin models were considered. All the models exhibited high fitting coefficients of determination with a contrasting vast deviation of estimated values for maximum sorption capacity towards experimental value of 93.71 mg/g. Considering kinetics, the pseudo-first and pseudo-second-order models, Elovich model, and the intraparticle diffusion model were employed for testing the experimental data. The process was shown to be fast with the greatest uptake extent in the initial 40 min from beginning of the process while equilibrium was attained after 2 h. Strong impacts of suspension pH, temperatures and sorbent dosage on the process were evidenced.