Simultaneous Removal of Heavy Metals and Ciprofloxacin Micropollutants from Wastewater Using Ethylenediaminetetraacetic Acid-Functionalized β-Cyclodextrin-Chitosan Adsorbent

ACS Omega. 2021 Dec 13;6(50):34624-34634. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.1c05015. eCollection 2021 Dec 21.

Authors

Monu Verma¹, Ingyu Lee¹, Shaveta Sharma¹, Ravi Kumar², Vinod Kumar^{3

4}, Hyunook Kim¹

Affiliations

¹ Water-Energy Nexus Laboratory, Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Seoul, Seoul 02504, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir 190006, India.
³ Department of Life Sciences, Graphic Era (Deemed to Be University), Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248002, India.
⁴ Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow 117198, Russian Federation.

Abstract

The current study pertains to the synthesis of an EDTA-functionalized β-cyclodextrin-chitosan (β-CD-CS-EDTA) composite via a two-step process for the adsorptive removal of toxic heavy metallic ions (i.e., Pb(II), Cu(II), and Ni(II)) and antibiotic micropollutant, i.e., ciprofloxacin (CIP), from water. Different batch adsorption experiments such as pH, reaction time and initial pollutant concentration effects were carried out to identify the adsorption condition to attain the maximum removal efficiency. Kinetics results fit well with the pseudo-second order (PSO) kinetics model for both inorganic and organic pollutants. However, adsorption of heavy metal ions to the adsorbent was faster than that of CIP. Isotherms results showed excellent monolayer adsorption capacities of 330.90, 161, and 118.90 mg g^-1 for Pb(II), Cu(II), and Ni(II), respectively, with a heterogeneous adsorption capacity of 25.40 mg g^-1 for CIP. The adsorption mechanism was investigated using energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), elemental mapping, and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) techniques. More significantly, the synthesized adsorbent gave good removal efficiencies when it was applied to simultaneously adsorb metal ions and CIP from real wastewater. Furthermore, excellent reusability could be obtained, making it a viable alternative to remove the inorganic and organic micropollutants for wastewater treatment.