Facile hydrothermal synthesis of magnetic adsorbent CoFe2O4/MMT to eliminate antibiotics in aqueous phase: tetracycline and ciprofloxacin

A highly resourceful, eco-friendly, and recyclable magnetic adsorbent based on montmorillonite (CoFe2O4/MMT) was fabricated via a facile hydrothermal method to harvest tetracycline (TC) and ciprofloxacin (CIP) from pollutant water. The prepared adsorbent was characterized by XRD, FT-IR, SEM, and VSM methods to comprehend its structure, morphology, and magnetism. Effects of experimental parameters including solution pH, adsorption time, initial concentration, and ion strength were studied in details. The experimental adsorption data of TC and CIP fitted into pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Langmuir isotherm, respectively. The maximum adsorptions of TC and CIP could reach up to 240.91 and 224.00 mg/g. The thermodynamic study indicates that the adsorption process is spontaneous. In addition, the antibiotics can be further degraded under visible light environment and the magnetic sorbent can also be thermally regenerated.