Magnetic sporopollenin supported magnesium nanoparticles for removal of tetracycline as an emerging contaminant from water.

Since the release of antibiotics as emerging contaminants into the environmental water can cause severe difficulties for human health, their removal from the water is necessary. In this regard, a novel environmentally friendly adsorbent was developed based on green sporopollenin, which was magnetized and modified with magnesium oxide nanoparticles to produce MSP@MgO nanocomposite. The newly developed adsorbent was applied to remove tetracycline antibiotic (TC) from aqueous media. The surface morphology of the MSP@MgO nanocomposite was characterized using FTIR, XRD, EDX, and SEM techniques. The effective parameters of the removal process were studied, and it was confirmed that the chemical structure of TC was highly affected by changes in pH solution due to different pKa; therefore, the results showed that pH 5 was the optimum. Also, the maximum sorption capacity of MSP@MgO for TC for adsorption was obtained at 109.89 mg.g. In addition, the adsorption models were investigated, and the process was fitted with the Langmuir model. Thermodynamic parameters showed that the process was spontaneous (ΔG < 0), endothermic (ΔH > 0) and the adsorption mechanism was following the physisorption mechanism at room temperature.