Cost-effective adsorption of pharmaceutical pollutant from aqueous solution using novel activated carbon derived from sumac seed
Safin M. Omar, Aveen F. Jalal · International Journal of Environmental & Analytical Chemistry · 2025
Pharmaceutical pollutants like Atenolol (ATN), Rosuvastatin (RSV), and Valsartan (VAL) pollute water, harm aquatic life, and resist standard treatment. To address this challenge, our study developed low-cost, eco-friendly activated carbon (AC) from sumac seeds, using Phosphoric acid (H₃PO₄) as the activating. The resulting sumac-based AC (AC(S)) boasts an impressive surface area of 730 m2/g and demonstrates excellent adsorption (ADS) performance for these pharmaceutical contaminants in aqueous solutions. The adsorbent doses used were 1.5 g/L for ATN and VAL and 0.5 g/L for RSV at the original pH and 30 °C temperature, achieving up to 96% for each molecule individually. ADS contact time of VAL adsorbed rapidly 30 minutes, while ATN and RSV required 2 hours. The kinetic and isotherm studies were more fitted to the pseudo-second-order model (2nd order) R2 (0.9999, 0.9999 and 0.9998) and Langmuir model R2 (0.9997, 0.9990 and 0.9997), with maximum capacity 99.7 mg/g, 107.9 mg/g, and 241 mg/g for ATN, RSV, and VAL respectively. Sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄) served as an eluent for the regeneration of the adsorbent. AC(S) regeneration and reuse for the three pharmaceutical molecules removal were tested for 10 cycles.