Adsorptive removal of oxytetracycline antibiotics on magnetic nanoparticles NiFe2O4/Au: Characteristics, mechanism and theoretical calculations

Abstract

This investigation aims to develop a specialized adsorbent for the efficient removal of Oxytetracycline (OTC) from complex matrices. We employed a magnetic composite, NiFe2O4/Au (NFO/Au), as the adsorbent, which exhibited remarkable ease of material recovery due to the reasonable magnetic property of NFO. Simultaneously, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on the NFO surface amplified the material's adsorption capacity by demonstrating a strong affinity for the amine groups within the OTC structure. The crystal and morphological structure and surface chemistry of the prepared material were identified by XRD, TEM, BET, and XPS. Their magnetic and optical properties were studied by VSM and UV-VIS. Cubic or rectangular shapes (50–100 nm) of NFO were surrounded by spherical AuNPs (10–30 nm). The saturation magnetization slightly decreased from 33 emu/g to 30 emu/g upon coating the NFO surface with AuNPs, which still ensures good magnetism of the composite. A maximum adsorption capacity of 43.48 mg/g was achieved at optimum adsorption conditions. The novel adsorbent exhibits fast adsorption after 30 min, high adsorption capacity, and good reusability after five cycles. The adsorption equilibrium adhered to a monolayer Langmuir isotherm, while the adsorption kinetics followed pseudo-second-order kinetics and the intraparticle diffusion models. The first principle calculation based on the density functional theory revealed that the fundamental reason behind the enhanced adsorption capacity is through greater electron populations, more negative binding energy, and higher effective charge transfer. This composite material was employed to remove OTC from water samples taken from a shrimp pond, demonstrating an impressive adsorption efficiency of approximately 90 %.