Merry Anggraini, Alfin Kurniawan, Lu Ki Ong, Mario A. Martin, Jhy-Chern Liu, Felycia E. Soetaredjo, Nani Indraswati, Suryadi Ismadji
The growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to public health has raised interest in the proper treatment of discharged pharmaceutical wastewater before entering surface waters. In this study, adsorption was highlighted as a low cost and effective pathway to remove amoxicillin and ampicillin from aqueous solutions. Montmorillonite (Na-MMT) and myristyltrimethylammonium (MTA)-intercalated montmorillonite (O-MMT) were employed as the adsorbing solids. Static adsorption experiments were performed at three temperatures (303.15 K, 313.15 K and 323.15 K) for single antibiotic systems. The adsorption isotherm curves at all temperatures exhibited an L2-type isotherm. The Freundlich and Langmuir models were applied to analyze single adsorption isotherm data. The maximum sorption capacity of 0.124-0.133 mmol g-1 for amoxicillin and 0.143-0.157 mmol g-1 for ampicillin was estimated for O-MMT sorbent from Langmuir fitting. A modified extended-Langmuir model with the inclusion of surface coverage was proposed for analysis of binary adsorption isotherm data. The fitness of the modified extended-Langmuir model was superior to the original model. Batch adsorption tests on real pharmaceutical wastewater demonstrated the feasibility of the O-MMT sorbent for practical applications. This journal is © the Partner Organisations 2014.
Department of Chemical Engineering, Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University, Surabaya 60114, Kalijudan 37, Indonesia; Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei City 106, No. 43, Sec. 4, Keelung Rd, Taiwan