Loofah Activated Carbon Sodium Alginate Hydrogel Microspheres with High Efficiency Cyclic Adsorption for Antibiotic Contaminants

Abstract

The global abuse of antibiotics has led to many environment problems such as water pollution and drug-resistant bacteria. In this study, pure natural loofah was used as raw material to form powdered loofah activated carbon (LAC) after high temperature carbonization annealing, and sodium alginate (SA) with gel ability was combined to prepare loofah activated carbon sodium alginate (LAC-SA) hydrogel sphere by external emulsification method. This work showed that the adsorption mechanisms of LAC-SA microspheres for the three antibiotics of ofloxacin (OFO), tetracycline (TC) and norfloxacin (NFO) were in line by the psedosecond-order and the formula of Langmuir. The ofloxacin (OFO) antibiotic solution was used as a sample for cyclic adsorption experiment for 10 times and the cumulative adsorption amount exceeded 700 mg g–1.