High selectivity and reusability of biomass-based adsorbent for chloramphenicol removal

Recently, biomass-based materials have attracted increasing attention because of their advantages of low cost, environment-friendly and nonpollution. Herein, the feasibility of using corn stalk biomass fiber (CF) and Fe₃O₄ embedded chitosan (CS) as a novel biomass-based adsorbent (CFS) to remove chloramphenicol (CAPC) from aqueous solution. Structure of CFS was characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Brunauer–Emmett– Teller (BET), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and zeta potential techniques. The effects of solution pH, adsorption time and ion strength on the adsorption capacity were examined. Adsorption isotherms obtained from batch experiments were better fitted by Langmuir model compared with Freundlich model, Dubinin–Radushkevich model and Temkin model. Adsorption kinetic data matched well to the pseudo-second order kinetic model. CAPC adsorption was endothermic, spontaneous, and entropy-increasing nature on CFS. In addition, the CFS could be separated by an external magnetic field, recycled, and reused without any significant loss in the adsorption capacity of CAPC. Based on these excellent performances, there is potential that CFS can be considered as a proficient and economically suitable material for the CAPC removal from the water environment.