A new green reactive adsorbent (calcium ferric oxide silica sand (CFO-SS)) made from wastepaper sludge ash and ferric ions was synthesised and shown to remove tetracycline antibiotics (TC) from contaminated water effectively. The synthesised sand was dried at 95 °C, and a series of batch and fixed bed experiments were performed to determine the optimum operating conditions. Results showed that the adsorption capacity of the CFO-SS increases with the concentration gradient between the solid and liquid phases. 0.3 g of the new adsorbent was proven sufficient to remove more than 90% of the TC at a pollutant dose of 50 mg/L in 50 mL of simulated groundwater with an agitation speed of 200 rpm for 3 h. The adsorption isotherm followed the Langmuir isotherm model, with a loading capacity of 21.96 mg/g at pH 7, while the Pseudo second-order model best described the absorption kinetics. The adsorption mechanisms proposed included electrostatic interaction, intraparticle diffusion, hydrogen bonding, and cation-π interactions. Characterisation investigations revealed that the newly precipitated oxides on silica sand play an essential role in TC adsorption support. In fixed-bed experiments, it was discovered that reducing the flow rate and inflow concentration of TC and increasing the sorbent mass significantly extended the lifetime of the produced sorbent in the packed column. The measured breakthrough curves were best fit with the Adams-Bohart and the Clark models, as they provided the highest square root number (R2) values. Finally, considering the efficacy of CFO-SS in TC adsorption performance, it can be noted that the novel synthesised reactive material is an efficient and environmentally friendly material for TC removal, and it presents a potential solution to resolving the challenge of TC-rich groundwater.
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