Efficient removal of pharmaceuticals from water using graphene nanoplatelets as adsorbent

Recently, pharmaceutical pollutants in water emerge as global concern as they give threat to human health and environment. In this study, graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) were used to efficiently remove antibiotics sulfamethoxazole (SMX) and analgesic acetaminophen (ACM) as pharmaceutical pollutants from water by adsorption process. GNPs; C750, C300, M15, and M5 were characterized by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-Ray diffraction and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller. The effects of several parameters; viz., solution pH, adsorbent amount, initial concentration and contact time were studied. The parameters were optimized by batch adsorption process and the maximum removal efficiency for both pharmaceuticals were 99%. The adsorption kinetics and isotherms model were employed, and the experimental data were best analysed with pseudo-second kinetic and Langmuir isotherm with maximum adsorption capacity (Qm) of 210.08 mg g-1 for sulfamethoxazole and 56.21 mg g-1 fo...