Emerging contaminants such as pharmaceutical active compounds have a potential hazardous to the aquatic environment and human health. There are only limited studies on the removal of Diazepam (DZP) anxiolytic drug via adsorption using biomass-based adsorbents. Therefore, the adsorptive removal of DZP from water was investigated using Sargassum Bovianum macroalgae (SM) and biochar (BSM) adsorbents prepared through pyrolysis of SM. The removal efficiency of DZP is 45% using SM (6 g/L) and it was significantly enhanced to reach 95 % using BSM adsorbent (6 g/L). Effects of batch adsorption conditions (i.e. solution pH, adsorbent mass, adsorbate concentration, contact time and temperature) on the adsorptive removal of DZP using SM and BSM were studied. Different adsorption isotherms (i.e Freundlich, Langmuir and Temkin) and kinetics (i.e pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, Elovich and particles diffusion) were tested. It has been found that the adsorption data fit Freundlich isotherms model and the adsorption process follows the pseudo-second-order kinetics. The solution pH had a negligible effect on the removal efficiency of SM and BSM adsorbents. Besides, the temperature slightly influenced their performance in removing DZP. The findings in this work determined that the low-cost BSM could be a potential adsorbent for removing DZP from water

Adsorptive removal of diazepam from water using biochar derived from macroalgae low-cost adsorbent

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.