Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Sep 7;22(18):9670.
doi: 10.3390/ijms22189670.

Pharmaceuticals Removal by Adsorption with Montmorillonite Nanoclay

Marina Kryuchkova  1 , Svetlana Batasheva  1 , Farida Akhatova  1 , Vasily Babaev  2 , Daina Buzyurova  2 , Anna Vikulina  3   4 , Dmitry Volodkin  5 , Rawil Fakhrullin  1 , Elvira Rozhina  1
Affiliations

Pharmaceuticals Removal by Adsorption with Montmorillonite Nanoclay

Marina Kryuchkova et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

The problem of purifying domestic and hospital wastewater from pharmaceutical compounds is becoming more and more urgent every year, because of the continuous accumulation of chemical pollutants in the environment and the limited availability of freshwater resources. Clay adsorbents have been repeatedly proposed as adsorbents for treatment purposes, but natural clays are hydrophilic and can be inefficient for catching hydrophobic pharmaceuticals. In this paper, a comparison of adsorption properties of pristine montmorillonite (MMT) and montmorillonite modified with stearyl trimethyl ammonium (hydrophobic MMT-STA) towards carbamazepine, ibuprofen, and paracetamol pharmaceuticals was performed. The efficiency of adsorption was investigated under varying solution pH, temperature, contact time, initial concentration of pharmaceuticals, and adsorbate/adsorbent mass ratio. MMT-STA was better than pristine MMT at removing all the pharmaceuticals studied. The adsorption capacity of hydrophobic montmorillonite to pharmaceuticals decreased in the following order: carbamazepine (97%) > ibuprofen (95%) > paracetamol (63-67%). Adsorption isotherms were best described by Freundlich model. Within the pharmaceutical concentration range of 10-50 µg/mL, the most optimal mass ratio of adsorbates to adsorbents was 1:300, pH 6, and a temperature of 25 °C. Thus, MMT-STA could be used as an efficient adsorbent for deconta×ating water of carbamazepine, ibuprofen, and paracetamol.

Keywords: adsorption; clay minerals; pharmaceuticals; treatment effectiveness.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The microscopy images of pristine (A,C) and hydrophobic (B,D) montmorillonite obtained using dark-field (A,B) and transmission electron microscopy (C,D).
Figure 2
Figure 2
AFM images of pristine (A,B) and hydrophobic (C,D) montmorillonite obtained in the Peak Force Error (A,C) and Adhesion (B,D) channels.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Effect of contact time on the removal efficiency of PP by pristine MMT and modified MMT–STA.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Adsorption isotherm of pharmaceuticals on clays.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Adsorption of pharmaceuticals onto clay fitted to linearized form of Freundlich isotherm.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Effect of pH on the removal efficiency of PP by pristine MMT and modified MMT–STA.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Effect of temperature on the removal efficiency of PP by MMT and modified MMT–STA.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Dependence of the PP removal efficiency on the mass of adsorbents (A–C) and on the concentration of PP at the mass ratio of clay adsorbent to adsorbate of 300:1 (D).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Evgenidou E.N., Konstantinou I.K., Lambropoulou D.A. Occurrence and removal of transformation products of PPCPs and illicit drugs in wastewaters: A review. Sci. Total Environ. 2015;505:905–926. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.10.021. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hai F.I., Yang S., Asif M.B., Sencadas V., Shawkat S., Sanderson-Smith M., Gorman J., Xu Z.Q., Yamamoto K. Carbamazepine as a possible anthropogenic marker in water: Occurrences, toxicological effects, regulations and removal by wastewater treatment technologies. Water. 2018;2:107. doi: 10.3390/w10020107. - DOI
    1. Macías-García A., García-Sanz-Calcedo J., Carrasco-Amador J.P., Segura-Cruz R. Adsorption of paracetamol in hospital wastewater through activated carbon filters. Sustainability. 2019;11:2672. doi: 10.3390/su11092672. - DOI
    1. Caban M., Stepnowski P. How to decrease pharmaceuticals in the environment? A review. Environ. Chem. Lett. 2021;19:3115–3138. doi: 10.1007/s10311-021-01194-y. - DOI
    1. Lewandowski J., Meinikmann K., Krause S. Groundwater–surface water interactions: Recent advances and interdisciplinary challenges. Water. 2020;12:296. doi: 10.3390/w12010296. - DOI