Abstract
In recent years, pharmaceutical products have been causing a serious environmental problem in hospital wastewater and water purification plants. The elimination of these pollutants is difficult due to their resistance to biological degradation. Paracetamol has been detected in higher concentrations in hospital wastewater than in other buildings. Activated carbons are a good material for removing paracetamol from hospital wastewater. One of the starting materials to obtain activated carbons is kenaf, which is an easy plant to cultivate. To study the elimination of paracetamol from hospital wastewater by activated carbon, the textural and chemical characterization of activated carbon, as well as the kinetic study and the analysis of the paracetamol adsorption mechanism by the adsorbent, have been carried out. The activated carbon samples studied are micro-mesoporous, with high specific surface values. The chemical composition with presence of oxygen groups favours the adsorption process. The adsorption kinetics were adjusted to a pseudo-second order model. The adsorption mechanism followed the intraparticular diffusion model, carried out in two stages: a fast first stage on the surface of the adsorbent and a slow one inside the pore. Based on the kinetic study, the use of this type of carbon is a good application for the removal of paracetamol from hospital wastewater.
Highlights
Hospital wastewater includes a great diversity of micropollutants as a result of research, diagnosis, laboratories, and patients’ excretions
The aim of this paper is to analyse the kinetics of retention of paracetamol present in wastewater, both from hospitals and treatment plants, through activated carbons prepared from kenaf
In the adsorption process by activated carbon a porous texture is required whose pore width is greater than the size of the drug molecule
Summary
Hospital wastewater includes a great diversity of micropollutants as a result of research, diagnosis, laboratories, and patients’ excretions. The chemical substances that usually appear in these wastewater include drugs and their active principles, therapeutic drugs and their metabolites, disinfectants, X-ray contrast agents, halogenated solvents, heavy metals, etc. These wastewaters are usually discharged with high contamination level of pharmaceuticals without pre-treatment into sewerage networks and joined with urban wastewater with a wide variety of chemicals to be treated together in wastewater treatment plants. Contaminants from wastewater treatment plants are mainly human and veterinary pharmaceuticals, personal care products, surfactants, pesticides and various industrial additives. The removal of these contaminants in wastewater treatment plants is quite low since most of them are resistant to biological degradation [3]
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