With the rise in use of conventional antibiotics for the treatment of bacterial infections, the prevalence of antibiotic pollution in streams and waterways has become an issue of great importance. If left untreated, antibiotic pollution in water systems may help to accelerate the rate at which virulent bacteria develop natural resistance to antibiotics. In this project, the efficacy of biochar, an organic compound produced from the pyrolysis of biological matter, in the removal of tetracycline, sulfamethazine, 4-nitroanaline, and amoxicillin trihydrate all water-soluble antibiotics or antibiotic precursors commonly used for the treatment of infectious diseases will be determined. Furthermore, the efficacy of commercial and lab-synthesized biochar which have been magnetized with iron was compared to unmagnetized commercial and lab-synthesized biochar. In general, it was observed that commercial biochar samples were more effective at removing the target compounds from solution, with sulfamethazine showing the greatest difference in removal efficacy between the commercial and lab synthesized. When comparing magnetized and unmagnetized biochar, it appeared that magnetization of biochar did influence the capacity of biochar to remove antibiotics, though no consistent overall trend was observed when comparing different classes of antibiotics. Moving forward, further work will be performed in order to test biochar’s absorptive capacity on other antibiotic compounds and determine the differences in affinity biochar has for differing antibiotics.

Determination of efficacy of biochar in removing antibiotics from aqueous solution

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