Stefanuto Luca, Ricci Agnese, Fardelli Elisa, Del Galdo Sara, Pepi Simone, Graziani Valerio, Tortora Luca, Rossi Claudio, Arena Valentina, Bongiorno Corrado, Smecca Emanuele, Capellini Giovanni, Capone Barbara, Tofani Daniela, Gasperi Tecla
Science Department, University of Roma Tre, Rome 00146, Italy.
Laboratory of Nanomaterials for Environment and Health (NAMES), Biostructures and Biosystems National Institute (INBB), Rome 00165, Italy.
ACS Omega. 2025 Jul 11;10(28):30087-30099. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.5c00043. eCollection 2025 Jul 22.
Organic wastewater compounds (OWCs) employed in human activities are, nowadays, commonly detected in surface water, groundwater, and drinking water. In particular, pharmaceuticals have caused great concern because after their consumption, traces of metabolites are excreted and reach the water resources either directly or after inefficient treatment. Despite this, these compounds are not regulated in drinking water, and existing toxicity data are inadequate to assess potential risks from chronic low-dose exposure. Considering the necessity to find new efficient, reusable, and biocompatible systems to remove organic pollutants from wastewater, the adsorption process has been found to be the most effective and economical because it is simple, highly efficient, regenerative, and scalable and does not produce intermediates that can increase the toxicity of the parent contaminants. Prompted by these reasons, in this research, an adsorbed medium composed of graphene oxide and an amine-oxazoline-based polymer (poly-(2-(3-(amino)-propyl))-2-oxazoline) was synthesized and employed in several adsorption experiments targeting nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen (), aspirin (), ketoprofen (), and benzoic acid (). The specific interaction between acidic moieties of drugs and basic domains of the polymer has been investigated by targeting both acid compounds and pharmaceutical products free of carboxylic groups. Also, the influence of several parameters, including initial concentration, liquid-phase composition, pH, and reusability, has been investigated. Results show that the maximum adsorption capacity for ibuprofen (), aspirin (), ketoprofen (), and benzoic acid () for experiments conducted in water, at the maximum initial concentration explored (90 mg L) and at natural pH equilibrium (pH ∼ 4), are, respectively, 37.4, 27.5, 43.5, and 26.0 mg g. These findings suggest that the prepared GO-pAmOx material has significant potential for adsorbing these drugs in water and good versatility for all investigated acid compounds and maintains high reusability. Notably, the reduction in adsorption capacity after ten adsorption cycles was only 1%.
如今，人类活动中使用的有机废水化合物（OWCs）在地表水、地下水和饮用水中普遍被检测到。特别是药物引起了极大关注，因为在其被消耗后，微量代谢产物会被排泄出来，直接或经过低效处理后进入水资源。尽管如此，这些化合物在饮用水中并未受到监管，现有的毒性数据也不足以评估慢性低剂量暴露带来的潜在风险。考虑到需要找到新的高效、可重复使用且生物相容的系统来去除废水中的有机污染物，吸附过程被认为是最有效且经济的，因为它简单、高效、可再生且可扩展，并且不会产生会增加母体污染物毒性的中间体。受这些原因的推动，在本研究中，合成了一种由氧化石墨烯和基于胺 - 恶唑啉的聚合物（聚 -（2 -（3 -（氨基）- 丙基））- 2 - 恶唑啉）组成的吸附介质，并将其用于针对布洛芬（）、阿司匹林（）、酮洛芬（）和苯甲酸（）等非甾体抗炎药的多个吸附实验中。通过针对酸性化合物和不含羧基的药品，研究了药物酸性部分与聚合物碱性区域之间的特定相互作用。此外，还研究了包括初始浓度、液相组成、pH值和可重复使用性等几个参数的影响。结果表明，在水中进行实验、在探索的最大初始浓度（90 mg/L）和自然pH平衡（pH ∼ 4）下，布洛芬（）、阿司匹林（）、酮洛芬（）和苯甲酸（）的最大吸附容量分别为37.4、27.5、43.5和26.0 mg/g。这些发现表明，制备的GO - pAmOx材料在吸附水中这些药物方面具有巨大潜力，对所有研究的酸性化合物具有良好的通用性，并保持高可重复使用性。值得注意的是，经过十次吸附循环后吸附容量的降低仅为1%。
