Adsorption behavior of tetracycline from aqueous solution on ferroferric oxide nanoparticles assisted powdered activated carbon

The typical chemical co-precipitation method was adopted for the synthesis of ferroferric oxide nanoparticles assisted powdered activated carbon (FONP-PAC). The crystal structure, surface profile, and element composition were systematically investigated to reveal FONP-PAC's structural characteristics and tetracycline (TC) adsorption mechanism. We found the formation of FONP distributed on the surface/pores/channels of PAC. The adsorption behavior was dramatically fast and could be described by Freundlich isotherm and Elovich kinetic models. The thermodynamics investigation indicated that the adsorption process was spontaneous endothermic reaction, which was mainly carried out via chemical sorption mechanism. Our research of the superior adsorption capacity of magnetically separable FONP-PAC for TC from aqueous solution proposed a feasible adsorbent instead of PAC for antibiotic wastewater, and the good regeneration ability of FONP-PAC provided the feasibility of its application in engineering.