Simultaneous removal of tetracycline and Cu(ii) by adsorption and coadsorption using oxidized activated carbon.

Co-contamination of antibiotics and heavy metals prevails in the environment. To overcome the obstacle of low metal uptake on activated carbon and to achieve simultaneous removal of tetracycline (TC) and Cu(ii) from water, coconut shell based granular activated carbon (GAC) treated with nitric acid was utilized. GAC property characterization showed that oxidation treatment distinctly decreased the surface area of GAC and significantly increased the content of oxygen containing functional groups.

Enhanced heterogeneous Fenton-like degradation of methylene blue by reduced CuFeO.

To facilitate rapid dye removal in oxidation processes, copper ferrite (CuFeO) was isothermally reduced in a H flow and used as a magnetically separable catalyst for activation of hydrogen peroxide (HO). The physicochemical properties of the reduced CuFeO were characterized with several techniques, including transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and magnetometry. In the catalytic experiments, reduced CuFeO showed superior catalytic activity compared to raw CuFeO for the removal of methylene blue (MB) due to its relatively high surface area and loading Fe/Cu bimetallic particles.