Abstract
Antibiotics in water have recently caused increasing concerns for public health and ecological environments. In this work, we demonstrated polydopamine-coated graphene oxide/Fe3O4 (PDA@GO/Fe3O4) imprinted nanoparticles coupled with magnetic separation for fast and selective removal of fluoroquinolone antibiotics in water. The nanoparticles were prepared by the self-polymerization of dopamine using sarafloxacin as a template. The imprinted PDA film of 10~20 nm uniformly covered the surface of GO/Fe3O4 providing selective binding sites. The nanoparticles showed rapid binding and a large capacity (70.9 mg/g). The adsorption data fitted well the Langmuir and pseudo-second order kinetic equations. The nanoparticles could be easily separated by a magnet following the adsorption and then regenerated by simple washing for repetitive adsorptions. The nanoparticles were successfully used for the removal of fluoroquinolone antibiotics in seawater, with removal efficiencies of more than 95%. The proposed strategy has potentials for efficient removal of antibiotics in environmental water.
Highlights
Antibiotics have been extensively used to treat bacterial infections in humans and animals
We showed selective removal of antibiotics in water using PDA-coated graphene oxide/ Fe3O4 (PDA@Graphene oxide (GO)/Fe3O4) imprinted nanoparticles, which were prepared by the self-polymerization of dopamine in the presence of GO/Fe3O4 and sarafloxacin as a template in Tris-HCl buffer
The size and shape of the prepared GO/Fe3O4 and PDA@GO/Fe3O4 nanoparticles were characterized by Transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
Summary
Antibiotics have been extensively used to treat bacterial infections in humans and animals. Common adsorbents used include activated carbon[17], carbon nanotube[18], graphene[19], metal oxide[20], sewage sludge[21], and smectite clay[22] These adsorbents possess poor selectivity and the co-adsorption of other common inorganic and/or organic compounds in water leads to low removal efficiency for target pollutants. Removal efficiency due to its low adsorption capacity and poor binding kinetics To address this problem, molecularly imprinted nanoparticles with abundant and accessible binding sites have been prepared by direct precipitation polymerization or surface molecular imprinting technology for in-situ polymerization on the surface of various nanomaterials[23,24,25]. Magnetic PDA/graphene imprinted composite and membrane have been reported for efficient enrichment/separation of glycopeptides and methylene blue in aqueous solutions[9, 36,37,38]
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