Manufacturing of cost-effective sorbent from by-product materials for treating real and simulated groundwater contaminated with antibiotics.

A novel adsorbent is synthesized from chicken bone wastes to support attempts to reuse them. To prepare the nanoparticles of calcium-iron oxide, the calcium ions have been extracted from chicken bones and combined with iron ions under specific conditions. Sodium alginate is used to immobilize the nanoparticles through synthesizing calcium/iron oxide - sodium alginate beads employed for tetracycline (TC) antibiotic adsorption. Batch experiments are conducted at a contact time of 0-180 min, initial TC concentration of 100-250 mg/L, agitation speed of 50-250 rpm, initial pH of 3-12, and beads dosage of 0.1-1.3 g/50 mL. The best vales for batch parameters are 90 min, 100 mg/L, 200 rpm, 7, and 1.3 g/50 mL, respectively. These conditions enable the beads to remove 97.116% of TC with 8 mg/g as maximum capacity. The precise formulation of the kinetic observations by the pseudo-second-order model indicates that the TC could be eliminated by chemical forces. The characterization tests provide evidence that nanoparticles formed inside the beads can support the sorption of TC, especially the particles that mainly consist of calcium-iron oxide. The beads are capable of removing TC from real groundwater with an efficiency smaller than that in the aqueous solution due to the presence of various chemicals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]