Industrialization and growth of the pharmaceutical companies have been a boon to the mankind in our day to day life in myriad ways. However, due to the uninhibited release of these active pharmaceutical compounds into the water systems has caused detrimental effects to the genetic pool. In this study, L-cysteine-modified 3-glycidyloxypropyltrimethoxysilane-coated magnetic nanomaterial showed a maximum removal of the efficiency of 82.90% for the nanomaterial dosage of 30 mg at an initial concentration of 50 mg L-1 at pH 6.0. Further, the nanomaterial showed reusability efficiency up to 80% for three cycles. The adsorption kinetics follow the pseudo-second-order reaction and the adsorption isotherm model best fits the Langmuir isotherm proving the adsorption process to be a monolayer sorption on a monolayer surface. This magnetic nanomaterial could serve as a promising tool for the removal of pharmaceutical compounds from aqueous solutions. Graphical abstract ᅟ.
Keywords: Adsorption; Nanoparticles; Pharmaceutical; Pollutant removal; Reusability.