Abstract
In recent years, the huge amounts of chemicals that are used as drugs and their derivatives have been exposed to the environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of these drugs (i.e. hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)) have a serious risk on aquatic media. In this study, carrageenan/sodium alginate (κC/Sa) was investigated as a biopolymer, environmentally friendly, and rapidly adsorbent to eliminate HCQ from its aqueous solution. The biopolymer (κC/Sa) was synthesized by free radical polymerization assisted by ultrasound in the presence of acrylic acid as cross-linkage and potassium persulfate as an initiator. The natural κC/Sa was characterized by FTIR, XRD, BET, BJH, and SEM techniques. The produced co-polymer had a mesoporous surface with high purity and significant thermal stability. The best parameters were determined to be 0.05 g biopolymer, 200 ppm initial HCQ concentration, salts, and pH = 7. The adsorption mechanism follows a pseudo second-order kinetic model, and the adsorption isotherm follows a Freundlich model, with qe reaching 89.8 mg/g at 500 ppm HCQ. Thermodynamic studies indicated that the adsorption of hydroxychloroquine drugs was an exothermic spontaneous process.
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