Regenerable bagasse-based carbon activated by in situ formation of zero-valent zinc microparticles for high-performance degradation of amoxicillin in water.

Increasing degradation of amoxicillin in water by low-cost advanced functional activated carbon-based materials derived from bagasse is an effective and economic way to remove the antibiotic residue pollutant and for high-valued utilization and transformation of plant wastes. In this work, bagasse was pyrolyzed and Zn2+ was activated for designing a high-efficiency bagasse-based activated carbon, which was characterized by FTIR, XRD, XPS, SEM, EDS, and ζ potential analyses. These analyses illustrated the mechanism of amoxicillin degradation, and microscale zero-valent zinc in bagasse-based activated carbon has a key role in amoxicillin degradation. Amoxicillin was broken down by reductive degraded radicals, which were produced by microscale zero-valent zinc corrosion in water. After the amoxicillin degradation, the byproduct of zinc hydroxide being adsorbed onto the used bagasse-based activated carbon can provide possibility of sustainable regeneration. Mass spectra analysis illustrated the main degradation products of amoxicillin. The kinetic experiments were adopted to observe the process of amoxicillin degradation, followed by the pseudo-first-order kinetic model. The isotherm experiments demonstrated that the maximum amoxicillin degradation capacity of bagasse-based activated carbon was about 46 mg g-1. The bagasse wastes were used as carbon source to design potential advanced activated carbon materials for increasing degradation of amoxicillin in water.