RESEARCH ARTICLE
Ce-Mn modify Al
2
O
3
adsorbent and the effect on adsorption
and regeneration properties
Yanlong Sun
1
&
Tong Zheng
1
&
Guangshan Zhang
1
&
Bei Liu
1
&
Peng Wang
1,2
Received: 7 March 2018 / Accepted: 17 April 2018
#
Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract
The regeneration of adsorbent by thermal method may transfer the adsorbed organic pollutants into the air phase. Herein,
manganese and cerium are loaded on adsorbent as catalyst to mineralize the adsorbed organic pollutants during regeneration.
The modified adsorbent is characterized by scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive spectrometer, Brunauer Emmett
Teller-Barrett Joyner Halenda, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Regeneration of modified adsorbent is evaluated by
adsorbent yield and mineralization percentage of the absorbed organic pollutants. The results demonstrate that the mineralization
percentage of tetracycline increased about 100% after the modification. Besides, the loaded catalyst can significantly reduce the
regeneration temperature. Furthermore, cerium can reduce the adverse impact causes by manganese which will decrease the
adsorption capacity of adsorbent. Kinetics, equilibrium, thermodynamic, and other adsorption properties of modified adsorbent
towards tetracycline are further studied. The theoretical maximum of adsorption capacity calculated by Langmuir model is
196.4 mg g
−1
, and the kinetics of adsorption fits pseudo-second-order model. The adsorption of tetracycline on the adsorbent
is feasible, spontaneous, and endothermic. The properties of synthesized composite material are stable; the yield of Ce/Mn/Al
2
O
3
adsorbent can keep higher than 95% even after five adsorption/regeneration cycles. This research provides another perspective on
the design and regeneration of adsorbent, which focus on reducing the secondary pollution during adsorbent regeneration
process.
Keywords Adsorption
.
Regeneration
.
Tetracycline
.
Mineralization
.
Microwave
.
Secondary pollution
Introduction
Adsorbent is commonly used in wastewater treatment as it is
environmentally friendly and easy to operate (Yu et al. 2009;
Zhang et al. 2012), especially for industrial wastewater which
contents toxic or refractory organic compounds like antibiotic
production wastewater.
Pharmaceutical antibiotics are used extensively in human
therapy and farming industry, which have attracted concerns
in recent years as they have been proven to be a class of
potential pollution (Ji et al. 2010;Kümmerer2009; Sarmah
et al. 2006). Antibiotics can affect organisms and disrupt in-
digenous microbial populations as they have acute and chron-
ic toxicity. The greatest hazard of antibiotics is the dissemina-
tion of antibiotic-resistant genes in microorganisms (Aristilde
et al. 2010; Gao et al. 2012; Sun et al. 2010).
Antibiotic production wastewater contains high concentra-
tion of residual antibiotics. For example, oxytetracycline
mother liquor contains extremely high levels of oxytetracy-
cline residues. The antibiotic concentration of oxytetracycline
mother liquor is about 844–1077 mg/L (Yi et al. 2016).
General water and wastewater treatment plants cannot dispose
these pollutants (Lapworth et al. 2012; PE et al. 2004). If
without adsorbent process, common treatment methods such
as coagulation, flocculation, and sedimentation can only re-
move 3–39% antibiotics in wastewater (Bundy et al. 2007).
The antibiotics can inhibit the microbial activity so they are
Responsible editor: Guilherme L. Dotto
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
(https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-2076-1) contains supplementary
material, which is available to authorized users.
* Tong Zheng
zhengtong@hit.edu.cn
1
School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology,
Harbin 150090, China
2
State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment,
Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China
Environmental Science and Pollution Research
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-2076-1
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