Facile fabrication of rape straw biomass fiber/β-CD/Fe3O4 as adsorbent for effective removal of ibuprofen

Abstract

Wastewater containing pharmaceuticals can be bioaccumulated, posing a potential risk to drinking water, human health, and ecosystems. In order to make the adsorption process more suitable for actual application, rape straw biomass fiber (treated by an acidified sodium chlorite solution, 5%) and Fe3O4 embedded β-CD to prepare a novel adsorbent (RSBCDF), which was used for the removal of ibuprofen (IBP) from aqueous solution. The RSBCDF was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) measurements, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and zeta potential measurements. The synthesized adsorbent was studied with regard to IBP removal percent under different adsorption conditions such as varying initial pH levels (4–10), initial ibuprofen concentrations (20−160 mg/L), contact time (5−150 min), and the dosage of adsorbent (10−100 mg) via batch adsorption experiments. The adsorption kinetics, thermodynamics, and isotherms were also investigated. The IBP adsorption behaviour followed a pseudo-second-order kinetic model and the Freundlich isotherm model. The maximum adsorption capacity obtained for ibuprofen was 48.29 mg/g. The values of Gibbs free energy change were negative (-2.58∼-3.56KJ/mol), suggesting that the process of ibuprofen adsorption onto adsorbent was spontaneous. The positive value of standard enthalpy change (12.09 kJ/mol) indicated that the adsorption process was endothermic. The obtained results prove that RSBCDF is a proficient and economically suitable material for removing IBP from water environments.