Adsorption behavior of amoxicillin and sulfamethoxazole antibiotics onto activated carbon antibiotics

Abstract

The ability of activated carbon to adsorb the antibiotics, amoxicillin and sulfamethoxazole from an aqueous solution was studied for batch experiments. The adsorption study was done for several variables as contact to e, adsorbate dosage and pH. It was found out that generally the adsorption rate increases with increase in contact time only up to a point when equilibrium is reached and the rate of adsorption equals the desorption rate in the aqueous solution at optimum time. Further increase in time causes no change in rate of adsorption. The rate was also found to increase with pH till an optimum pH after which the rate decreases. Increase in adsorbent dosage was also found to increase with the rate if adsorption till a maximum point after which the rate remains constant. The adsorption kinetics was studied for several adsorption isotherms that were found to always exist together but the favourability of one depends on the individual study parameters which are R for the Langmuir model and n for the Freundlich model