Effective Capture of Cefradines in Water with a Highly Stable Zr(IV)-Based Bimetal–Organic Framework

Efficient removal of antibiotics (e.g., β-lactam antibiotic cefradine) from wastewater is a vital issue and challenge. In this work, by introducing the second transition-metal cobalt into the structure of UiO-66 and UiO-67 using the postsynthetic metalation method, we first synthesized bimetallic UiO-66-Co and UiO-67-Co that maintain the stability of Zr-MOFs while possessing higher chemical activity. These materials were applied in the adsorption removal of cefradines from water. Adsorption test results exhibited that the maximum uptake capacity of cefradine when UiO-67-Co reaches the unexpected 1091 mg/g is much more superior to the other adsorbents in the previously reported works. We employed the characterizations of N 2 adsorption–desorption, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to evaluate the structural, elementary properties, and functionality of the as-prepared novel materials. The saturated adsorbent UiO-67-Co can be regenerated with ethanol washing and nitrogen atmosphere sweeping at 300 °C for 3 h. More than 95% of the cefradine capacity was recovered after five adsorption recycles. Such high-performance adsorbents have significant potential for adsorption removal of β-lactam antibiotics such as cefradines from water.