Molecular Recognition and Encapsulation Research Group (REM), Health Sciences Department, Universidad Católica de Murcia (UCAM), Campus de los Jerónimos 135, E-30107 Guadalupe, Spain.
Applied Technology Group to Environmental Health, Universidad Católica de Murcia (UCAM), Campus de los Jerónimos 135, E-30107 Guadalupe, Spain.
Int J Mol Sci. 2024 Feb 29;25(5):2829. doi: 10.3390/ijms25052829.
The significant environmental issue of water pollution caused by emerging contaminants underscores the imperative for developing novel cleanup methods that are efficient, economically viable, and that are intended to operate at high capacity and under continuous flows at the industrial scale. This study shows the results of the operational design to build a prototype for the retention at lab scale of pollutant residues in water by using as adsorbent material, insoluble polymers prepared by β-cyclodextrin and epichlorohydrin as a cross-linking agent. Laboratory in-batch tests were run to find out the adsorbent performances against furosemide and hydrochlorothiazide as pollutant models. The initial evaluation concerning the dosage of adsorbent, pH levels, agitation, and concentration of pharmaceutical pollutants enabled us to identify the optimal conditions for conducting the subsequent experiments. The adsorption kinetic and the mechanisms involved were evaluated revealing that the experimental data perfectly fit the pseudo second-order model, with the adsorption process being mainly governed by chemisorption. With K constant values of 0.044 (L/g) and 0.029 (L/g) for furosemide and hydrochlorothiazide, respectively, and the determination coefficient (R) being higher than 0.9 for both compounds, Freundlich yielded the most favorable outcomes, suggesting that the adsorption process occurs on heterogeneous surfaces involving both chemisorption and physisorption processes. The maximum monolayer adsorption capacity (q) obtained by the Langmuir isotherm revealed a saturation of the β-CDs-EPI polymer surface 1.45 times higher for furosemide (q = 1.282 mg/g) than hydrochlorothiazide (q = 0.844 mg/g). Based on these results, the sizing design and building of a lab-scale model were carried out, which in turn will be used later to evaluate its performance working in continuous flow in a real scenario.
新兴污染物造成的水污染这一重大环境问题，凸显了开发新型清洁方法的必要性，这些方法必须高效、经济可行，并旨在以工业规模的高容量和连续流量运行。本研究展示了在实验室规模上通过使用不溶性聚合物（β-环糊精和表氯醇作为交联剂）作为吸附材料来保留水中污染物残留的操作设计原型的结果。进行了实验室批处理测试，以研究吸附剂对呋塞米和氢氯噻嗪作为污染物模型的性能。针对吸附剂用量、pH 值、搅拌和药物污染物浓度的初步评估使我们能够确定进行后续实验的最佳条件。评估了吸附动力学和涉及的机制，结果表明实验数据与准二级模型完美拟合，吸附过程主要受化学吸附控制。对于呋塞米和氢氯噻嗪，K 常数分别为 0.044（L/g）和 0.029（L/g），两个化合物的决定系数（R）均高于 0.9，表明吸附过程发生在涉及化学吸附和物理吸附过程的异质表面上。通过 Langmuir 等温线获得的最大单层吸附容量（q）表明，β-CDs-EPI 聚合物表面对呋塞米（q=1.282mg/g）的饱和程度比氢氯噻嗪（q=0.844mg/g）高 1.45 倍。基于这些结果，进行了实验室规模模型的设计和构建，随后将在实际场景中的连续流动中评估其性能。
