The development of excellent drug adsorbents and clarifying the interaction mechanisms between adsorbents and adsorbates are greatly desired for a clean environment. Herein, we report that a reduced graphene oxide modified sheeted polyphosphazene (rGO/poly (cyclotriphosphazene-co-4,4'-sulfonyldiphenol)) defined as PZS on rGO was used to remove the tetracycline (TC) drug from an aqueous solution. Compared to PZS microspheres, the adsorption capacity of sheeted PZS@rGO exhibited a high adsorption capacity of 496 mg/g. The adsorption equilibrium data well obeyed the Langmuir isotherm model, and the kinetics isotherm was fitted to the pseudo-second-order model. Thermodynamic analysis showed that the adsorption of TC was an exothermic, spontaneous process. Furthermore, we highlighted the importance of the surface modification of PZS by the introduction of rGO, which tremendously increased the surface area necessary for high adsorption. Along with high surface area, electrostatic attractions, H-bonding, π-π stacking and Lewis acid-base interactions were involved in the high adsorption capacity of PZS@rGO. Furthermore, we also proposed the mechanism of TC adsorption via PZS@rGO.
Keywords: adsorption; reduced graphene oxide; tetracycline; thermodynamics.