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An important environmental problem is the removal of contaminants and the purification of domestic and industrial water from pollutants of various nature. There is a separate issue of cleaning the effluents of pharmaceutical enterprises. Various chemical and physical methods are used to solve these problems, such as settling, coagulation, filtration, and sorption techniques. Adsorption with using efficient and reusable adsorbents is the most effective and cheap. In recent years special attention has been paid to the use of sorption materials based on hydrolysis lignin, which has a high sorption activity in relation to ions of some heavy metals, dyes, organic compounds and pharmaceuticals. The use of lignin as an adsorbent simultaneously solves two problems: the disposal of paper production waste and the purification of sewage from various types of pollutants. The aim of this work was to study the sorption properties of hydroylysis lignin in aqueous solution in relation to some medical substances of different chemical nature, existing in solution in cationic, anionic or neutral forms. The point of zero charge of hydrolysis lignin was determined, which is equal to рНPZC = 4.95. The adsorption of rivanol, proflavin, doxorubicin, levofloxacin, furacilin, and salicylic acid by hydrolysis lignin was studied as dependence on the pH of the solutions and the concentration of adsorbates. It was found that adsorption largely depends on the structure of the pharmaceuticals and the pH values of the solutions. It is shown that the studied medical compounds, which exist in the solution in the form of cations, are adsorbed the best (rivanol, proflavin, doxorubicin). Adsorption of these substances occurs mainly due to electrostatic interaction with negatively charged surface groups. Adsorption of anionic form (salicylic acid) is the smallest and is observed only at quite low pH values. Levofloxacin is adsorbed mainly in the form of zwitter ions, and furacilin is in neutral form. The adsorption of these both compounds occupies an intermediate value of adsorption amount. The obtained adsorption isotherms are well lined up in Langmuir coordinates. Quantitative parameters of adsorption values - of maximum adsorption and equilibrium constants were calculated. Quite high values of these parameters indicate that hydrolysis lignin can be used as an adsorbent for the removal of these pharmaceuticals.
Golovkova et al. (Tue,) studied this question.