Determination of adsorption characteristics of monolayer titanium carbide with fluoroquinolone pollutants in aqueous solution

Abstract

Abstract In this study, the elimination of ciprofloxacin (CPx) from aqueous solutions by using titanium carbide (TiC) was investigated. The influence of solid/liquid ratio, contact time, solution pH and temperature were conducted to determine the adsorption capacity, isotherm, kinetic and thermodynamic parameters on the adsorption. Also, the effect of ionic strength, different water sources and availability of adsorption/desorption studies were performed. Given the results achieved, the system reached equilibrium in 420 min. The maximum adsorption capacity of CPx on the TiC was obtained 0.93 mg g−1 at pH 9. The CPx removal was higher in distilled water compared other mediums. When compared with the adsorption capacity in the absence of ionic strength, the presence of Na+ and Ca2+ ions in the water medium decreased the CPx adsorption. According to the adsorption/desorption experiments, the CPx desorption efficiency using 0.1 M NaOH was higher than 0.1 M HCl. According to results, the pseudo- second order kinetic model and Freundlich isotherm model could better describe the experimental data. The results obtained from thermodynamic data showed that the CPx adsorption was endothermic and nonspontaneous. To investigate the interaction mechanism between TiC and CPx, FTIR, XRD, zeta potential and BET surface area analysis were conducted.