Removal of Antibiotic Sulfamethazine from Aqueous Media

The removal efficiency of Sulfamethazine as a representative antibiotic (SMT) on a new and eco-friendly activated carbon provided from watermelon seeds species as adsorbent has been studied in simple systems. Some experimental parameters, namely the pH, the amount of adsorbent and the contact time are studied. The results showed that the weak chemical bond (π-π EDA interaction) dominated the sorption of SMT to watermelon seeds. The present adsorbent played an important role in the sorption of SMT, leading to a higher sorption capacity onto watermelon seeds (90.78 mg/g). The solvent effect is been studied to show that the electron-donor-acceptor (EDA) interaction is the main adsorption mechanism of SMT antibiotic and that adsorption capacity increases with the increase of dipole moment of solvents. A kinetic study showed that the removal efficiency process followed the pseudo-second-order model and the Langmuir isotherm was the best model to fit and describe the phenomenon in the single system.