Sustainable wastewater decontamination of chlortetracycline using kaolin-alginates beads: Practical applications and adsorption mechanisms

This study systematically evaluates the adsorption performance of kaolin (KN), kaolin-alginate beads (KN@Alg), and activated carbon (AC) for chlortetracycline (CTC) removal from water. Comprehensive characterization using FT-IR, SEM-EDX, XRD, and XPS revealed that incorporating alginate into KN significantly enhanced its adsorption capacity by increasing binding sites. KN@Alg exhibited a superior adsorption capacity (68.74 mg/g) compared to KN (42.76 mg/g), though slightly lower than AC (102.96 mg/g). In terms of removal efficiency, KN@Alg (68.44%) and AC (79.45%) outperformed KN (55.04%). Kinetic studies indicated that CTC adsorption on KN and KN@Alg followed both pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models, suggesting combined physisorption and chemisorption mechanisms, while AC adsorption was dominated by physisorption. Isotherm analysis showed that KN@Alg exhibited greater surface heterogeneity, with adsorption well-described by the Freundlich and Langmuir models, whereas KN a..., , , # Data from: Sustainable wastewater decontamination of chlortetracycline using kaolin-alginates beads: Practical applications and adsorption mechanisms

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9w0vt4bs3](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9w0vt4bs3)

## Description of the data and file structure

The data presented here about the adsorption process of CTC and they were calculated from the Abs from UV Vis machine. 

Characterization data were also provided here. 

### Files and variables

#### File: characterization_data.xlsx

**Description:** 

##### Variables

* KN@Alg refer to alginate beads incorporated kaolin clay
* CTC is the drug used in this study chlortetracylibe.
* AC is ACTIVATED CARBON
* mg/g UNIT oF ADSORPTION CAPACITY
* mg/L unit of CTC concentration
* ev is the binding energy unit means electron volt.

**Description:** 

The characterization data include XPS and EDS analyses of KN@Alg before and after CTC adsorption, in addition to XRD patterns of both KN and KN@Alg. Also included F...,