In present research, the activated carbon was prepared by a green approach from pomegranate peel coated with zero-valent iron nanoparticles (AC-nZVI) and developed as adsorbent for the removal of amoxicillin from aqueous solution. The physicochemical properties of the AC-nZVI were investigated using XRD, FTIR, and FESEM techniques. The optimal values of the parameters for the best efficiency (97.9%) were amoxicillin concentration of 10 mg/L, adsorbent dose of 1.5 g/L, time of 30 min, and pH of 5, respectively. The adsorption equilibrium and kinetic data were fitted with the Langmuir monolayer isotherm model (qmax 40.282 mg/g, R2 0. 0.999) and pseudo-first order kinetics (R2 0.961). The reusability of the adsorbent also revealed that the adsorption efficiency decreased from 83.54 to 50.79% after five consecutive repetitions. Overall, taking into account the excellent efficiency, availability, environmental friendliness, and good regeneration, AC-nZVI can be introduced as a promising absorbent for amoxicillin from aquatic environments.
Keywords: Activated carbon; Adsorption; Amoxicillin; Green synthesis; nZVI.