Abstract
The removal of pharmaceutical contaminants from aqueous solutions was studied by a new adsorbent synthesized from the architecture of cellulose chains on graphene oxide nanosheets. The modified adsorbent illustrated a capacity of 17.9 mg/g for ibuprofen and 32.4 mg/g for cephalexin, under optimum adsorption time of about 90 min, pH 7, and ambient temperature.
Moreover, the removal of ibuprofen (20 ppm) was 91% and cephalexin (40 ppm) was around 82% from water under this condition. The adsorption isotherm of both drugs followed the Freundlich model and the adsorption reaction was exothermic and spontaneous.
The maximum cephalexin and ibuprofen adsorption capacity resulting from Langmuir isotherm were similar to 99.01 and 30.21 mg/g, respectively. All in all, the MGO-MCell nanocomposite illustrated effective performance and environmental friendliness for the adsorption of these compounds from water.