Amino-functionalized biomass-derived porous carbons with enhanced aqueous adsorption affinity and sensitivity of sulfonamide antibiotics.

In view of the increasing concerns in antibiotics contamination, advanced technologies for antibiotics removal have been receiving widespread research attention in the fields of environmental sciences. This work has developed a series of amino-functionalized porous carbon materials (NH2-BPCs), via a facile chemical modification method, which have been found efficient for the removal of sulfonamide antibiotics from simulated wastewater. Studies on adsorption kinetics and isotherms of antibiotics in simulated aqueous phases indicated that the adsorption capacity of sulfadiazine (SDZ) by NH2-BPCs showed a large value under acidic conditions (pH < 5). Moreover, the adsorption rate constant of NH2-BPCs was greatly enhanced upon amino modification, which demonstrated faster and more effective adsorption efficiency for antibiotics removal. These results suggested that surface amino modification of porous carbons might be a viable pathway to increase the adsorption affinity and efficiency of antibiotics with great potentials for water remediation.