Sticking To It: Using Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes as Possible Adsorbents for Sulfamethoxazole

Overview

Sulfamethoxazole is a veterinary pharmaceutical that has been implemented into animal feed to improve chick growth, animal health, and meat production. However, sulfamethoxazole can’t be fully metabolized (50-100%), and is usually excreted. This presents a problem as sulfamethoxazole is very water soluble and has shown high mobility in soil, which allows it to enter the environment with ease. Sulfamethoxazole has been found to be very toxic to aquatic organisms. Current waste water treatments are not capabl e of fully extracting the pharmaceutical from the water, so the compound can also be re -introduced in the environment through reclaimed water. The purpose of this study was to determine if multi -walled carbon nanotubes could be used as possible adsorbents for sulfamethoxazole. To conduct this study, batch reactors were prepared. Each batch reactor held 30 ml of a sulfamethoxazole solution at a concentration of 600 µg/L. The carbon nanotube concentration was .5% for the low treatment group and 2% for the high treatment group. In addition, a control treatment group which contained no nanotubes was prepared. All of the batch reactors were placed on an orbital shaker for mixing. At 0 hour, 30 minutes, 2 hours, and 24 hours of treatment, 1 mL samples were removed from each of the batch reactors. For the analysis of sulfamethoxazole concentration, the samples were analyzed using a high -performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC) with ultraviolet detection. It was discovered that the application of multi -walled CNT’s was very effective in removing the sulfamethoxazole from the solution.

Competition history

• JSHS 2024 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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