Abstract
Pharmaceuticals, with veterinary and human usage, have continuously been launched into the environment and their presence has been frequently detected in water bodies. The inefficacy of conventional water treatment processes for the removal of drugs, added to their potential adverse effects to human health and environment, suggest that new separation processes should be studied. Adsorption is highlighted as a promising method and the use of alternative adsorbents is encouraged due to the high costs of activated carbon. Different clay materials were evaluated in the present work for the removal of amoxicillin, caffeine, propranolol, and diclofenac sodium from aqueous solutions. The removal efficiency depended on the drug and adsorbent material used and varied between 23-98 % for amoxicillin, 21-89 % for caffeine, 29-100 % for propranolol, and 2-99 % for diclofenac sodium. The results showed that clays may be used successfully as alternative adsorbent material on the removal of selected emergent contaminants.
