Remoción de paracetamol por biosorción en tanque agitado usando cáscara de cacao y bagazo de caña de azúcar

Abstract

The present titration work is part of the research project developed by the Center for Environmental Studies (CEA) of the University of Cuenca, Evaluation of emerging pollutants present in wastewater from the Ucubamba treatment plant and removal by biosorption techniques and phytoremediation, in which the removal of paracetamol was studied, using bagasse from sugarcane and cocoa husk as biosorbents. In the first place, the physical and chemical characterization of both biomasses was carried out, followed by the adsorption study, in which some parameters that have influence on the process were optimized, such as: biosorbent dose, pH, solute concentration, contact times and temperature.

The results of the characterization tests showed that the biomasses are acidic and the FT-IR tests showed that the functional groups with oxygen are present in both biomasses, which added to the hydrophilic nature of the paracetamol, make the biosorbents adsorb to water, better than to the drug.

Finally, the equilibrium isotherms obtained are similar to type III of the IUPAC classification, which indicates an unfavorable process for the adsorption of the solute, which is why the adsorption isotherms of both biomasses did not conform to the Langmuir models and Freundlich, the experimental data were adjusted to the Dubinin-Radushkevich model, which describes effective adsorption processes at high concentrations of solute.