A possibility of the adsorption–spectrophotometric determination of tetracycline antibiotics using a zirconium-containing metal–organic framework as a sorbent is considered. Chlortetracycline hydrochloride is used as the test substance. The sorbent was synthesized by the reaction of zirconium tetrachloride with 2-amino-1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid in N,N-dimethylformamide with the addition of HCl as a modulator and characterized by elemental analysis, IR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, scanning electron microscopy, and low-temperature nitrogen adsorption/desorption. It was found that the material has a developed surface area (820 m2/g), constant porosity, a combined microporous–mesoporous structure, and an average pore diameter of 7.97 nm. Sorption studies under static and dynamic conditions showed that the proposed sorbent is capable of effectively extracting up to 578 mg/g of chlortetracycline at 5°C. The experimental data are well described by the sorption isotherm (R2 = 0.998–0.999). The limit of detection is 0.06 mg/L. The results obtained confirm the applicability of this approach to both sample preparation and preconcentration of tetracycline antibiotics, as well as to the effective removal of pharmaceutical contaminants from wastewater with subsequent sorbent regeneration.
Bryantseva et al. (Sun,) studied this question.