ZIF-8-Derived Hollow Carbon for Efficient Adsorption of Antibiotics.

Hongmei Tang,Runjia Lin,Guanjie He,Wenyao Li,Zhe Wang,Jianghong Wu,Dan John Leslie Brett,Paul Robert Shearing,Haishun Jiang

doi:10.3390/nano9010117

Abstract

The harmful nature of high concentrations of antibiotics to humans and animals requires the urgent development of novel materials and techniques for their absorption. In this work, CTAB (Cetyltrimethyl Ammonium Bromide)-assisted synthesis of ZIF-8 (zeolitic imidazolate framework)-derived hollow carbon (ZHC) was designed, prepared, and used as a high-performance adsorbent, and further evaluated by Langmuir and Freundlich isothermal adsorption experiments, dynamic analysis, as well as theoretical calculation. The maximum capacities of ZHC for adsorbing tetracycline (TC), norfloxacin (NFO), and levofloxacin (OFO) are 267.3, 125.6, and 227.8 mg g−1, respectively, which delivers superior adsorptive performance when compared to widely studied inorganic adsorbates. The design concept of ZIF-8-derived hollow carbon material provides guidance and insights for the efficient adsorbent of environmental antibiotics.

Highlights

Due to their outstanding medical properties, antibiotics are broadly utilized to treat infectious diseases; this leads to high levels of antibiotics in hospital effluent and sewage treatment plants [1]
Since antibiotics cannot be totally metabolized by humans or animals, and it is impossible to prevent the mass utilization of antibiotics, a vicious cycle forms and results in the uncontrolled accumulation of residual antibiotics in the environment [2]
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been synthesized via compounds composed of inorganic metal ions centers and organic ligands [3]

Summary

Introduction

Due to their outstanding medical properties, antibiotics are broadly utilized to treat infectious diseases; this leads to high levels of antibiotics in hospital effluent and sewage treatment plants [1]. Since antibiotics cannot be totally metabolized by humans or animals, and it is impossible to prevent the mass utilization of antibiotics, a vicious cycle forms and results in the uncontrolled accumulation of residual antibiotics in the environment [2] Antibiotics such as quinolones and tetracycline are able to make bacteria resistant to drugs and cause various diseases. Various morphologies of porous nanomaterials can be prepared by using MOFs as sacrificial templates through different thermal and/or chemical treatments. Highly porous carbons can be produced via the heat treatment of MOFs in an inert atmosphere, coupled with chemical etching for the removal of the surface metal ions, leading to an increased specific surface area. Compared with carbonaceous materials fabricated by conventional precursors, MOF-derived carbons often exhibit controllable porous architectures, pore. The pore size distribution of the ZHC was obtained from BJH method using the Density Functional Theory (DFT) method by ASiQwin software [8,9] (ASAP 2020, Micromeritics, Norcross, GA, USA)

Adsorption Process

Conclusions