Comparative depiction of removal performance of Poly (acrylamide-coitaconic acid)/Charcoal and Chitosan/Charcoal composites for sorption of Antibiotic drug from simulated wastewater

This study involves comparative study of equilibrium and kinetic sorption studies to remove antibiotic drug Ciprofloxacin (CF) from aqueous solutions using poly (acrylamide-coitaconic acid)/charcoal composite i.e. [poly(AAm-co-IA)/Chl] and chitosan-charcoal composite i.e. Cht/Chl as polymeric cation exchanger sorbent materials. The composites prepared were characterized by FTIR spectroscopy and TGA analysis. In addition their physicochemical parameters were also determined. The various isotherm models, when applied to equilibrium sorption data at 25°C, followed the order of fitness as Temkin > Langmuir≍ Freundlich and Temkin>Freundlich>Langmuir, respectively for [poly (AAm-coIA)/Chl] and Cht/Chl. The kinetic uptake data, obtained for [poly (AAm-co-IA)/Chl] and Cht/Chl sorbents exhibited the order of fitness as: pseudo first order > Pore diffusion> simple Elovich model> pseudo second order and Pseudo second order > pseudo first order > pore diffusion > simple Elovich respectively. The sorption mean free energy from the Dubinin–Raduschkevich (DR) isotherm was found to be nearly 12.91 kJ mol⁻¹ and 5.59 kJ mol⁻¹ indicating an ion-exchange mechanism for drug uptake for only [poly (AAm-coIA)/Chl. The optimum pH value of sorbate solution for drug uptake was found to be around 6.0. Finally, the antibacterial action of drug was investigated and it was found that after adsorption there was a decrease in bacterial growth inhibition efficiency of drug solution.