Ibuprofen Adsorption on Organo-Zeolite: Experimental and Modelling Analysis

This paper deals with a preliminary study aimed at investigating the adsorption capacity of an innovative natural environmental friendly adsorbing material, consisting in an organo-zeolite, made by irreversibly binding humic acids onto natural zeolite. The removal of ibuprofen sodium salt, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug among the most detected emerging contaminants into aquatic environments, was investigated by batch tests. Experiments were carried out under neutral pH and at a temperature of 25 ° C. The kinetic and the equilibrium adsorption capacity were also investigated. Data show that a pseudo-second order rate equation can be used to describe the kinetics of Ibuprofen adsorption, while the equilibrium adsorption is adequately described by the Langmuir isotherm model. A comparison between the organo-zeolite and the raw zeolite shows that the adsorption capacity of the organo-zeolite was about 3 times higher than that of the raw material with a maximum amount can be adsorbed (q _max), extracted by Langmuir equation, of 0.205 mg g−1 and 0.078 mg g−1 , respectively.