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The effects of activated carbon surface features on the reactive adsorption of carbamazepine and sulfamethoxazole

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journal contribution
posted on 2017-05-25, 13:57 authored by Lilja Nielsen, Mark Biggs, William Skinner, Teresa J. Bandosz
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Two commercial carbons, coconut shell- and wood-based were chosen to evaluate the mechanisms of carbamazepine (CBZ) and sulfamethoxazole (SMX) adsorption from a low (ppm level) concentration of these pharmaceuticals. The initial sample and those after adsorption were extensively characterized using potentiometric titration, thermal analysis combined with mass spectroscopy, FTIR, and XPS. It was found that not only porosity but also surface chemistry plays an important role in the adsorption process. The results show that extensive surface reactions take place during adsorption and adsorbates undergo significant transformations in the pore system. The ability of carbon surfaces to form superoxide ions results in the oxidation of CBZ and SMX, and their partial decomposition. Surface chemistry also promotes dimerization of the latter species. Moreover, functional groups of CBZ and SMX, mainly amines, react with oxygen groups of the carbon surface. Thus not only microporous carbons with sizes of pores similar to those of adsorbate molecules, but the carbons with large pores, rich in oxygen groups, can efficiently remove these pharmaceuticals following the reactive adsorption mechanism.

Funding

This publication was made possible by USEPA grant (RD835178).

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Chemistry

Published in

Carbon

Volume

80

Issue

1

Pages

419 - 432

Citation

NIELSEN, L., 2014. The effects of activated carbon surface features on the reactive adsorption of carbamazepine and sulfamethoxazole. Carbon, 80(1), pp. 419-432.

Publisher

© Elsevier

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2014

Notes

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Carbon and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2014.08.081

ISSN

0008-6223

Language

  • en

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