Study of elimination of emerging contaminants by adsorption using activated carbon of coconut (amoxicillin - penicillin - theobromine)

Emerging contaminants are recently uncovered in natural currents duo to human and industrial activities. Most of them have no legal standard can probably cause damaging effects aquatic life at relevant concentrations. The conventional wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) is not always effective for the removal these huge classes pollutants so further water treatments necessary. In this work, we applied powdered activated carbon adsorption process eliminate selected emerging pollutants, Theobromine two antibiotics commonly used Spain: Amoxicillin (AMX) Penicillin G (Peni G). Different experimental conditions such as pH temperature, initial concentration, amount biomass, contact time were studied obtain best conditions. different detected by ultra-performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS). whole results obtained confirm effectiveness purification effluents charged with stimulant. indicate that coconut shell charcoal allows better retention compound after 90 minutes elimination yields evolve introduced. Furthermore, it has been shown concentration variation considerably influence binding theobromine, penicillin, amoxicillin molecules sites charcoal. overall showed kinetics three on well described second-order model, isotherms absorbent/absorbate systems satisfactorily Langmuir model.