Tunable morphology of Ce-organic framework for efficient removal of sulfamethazine and sulphanilamide

Discharging of “sulfa drugs” as a type of antibiotics in the wastewater, causes dangerous pollution impact for the aquatic system. Subsequently, the treatment of wastewater from “sulfa drugs” is interestingly required. Herein, removal of “sulfamethazine” and “sulfanilamide” as “sulfa drugs” from aqueous media was investigated by Ce-MOF with different morphologies. Ce-benzene tri-carboxylic acid “Ce-BTC” was synthesized by solvo-thermal, microwave and cold precipitation techniques to produce “Ce-BTC” (s) with straw-sheaf like structure, “Ce-BTC” (m) with spherical shaped particles and “Ce-BTC” (p) with orthorhombic structure, respectively. The effect of “Ce-BTC” morphology on the adsorption of “sulfamethazine” and “sulfanilamide” was kinetically and isothermally studied. The adsorption capacity for sulfamethazine was quite higher than that of sulfanilamide and “Ce-BTC” (m) with the spherical shape exhibited the highest adsorption capacity. The measured maximum capacity onto “Ce-BTC” (m) was 171.6 mg/g for sulfamethazine and 132.9 mg/g for sulphanilamide. The maximum capacity of “sulfamethazine” and “sulfanilamide” onto “Ce-BTC” (m) was quite higher than that onto “Ce-BTC” (s) by factor of 1.6 and 1.8, respectively. The prepared “Ce-BTC” (s) showed substantially good recyclability, while the removal efficiency is lowered by 15 % and 26 % for sulfamethazine and sulphanilamide, respectively, after 5 consecutive cycles.