Removal of Estradiol Valerate and Progesterone using Powdered and Granular Activated Carbon from Aqueous Solutions

As a porous-adsorbent material, activated carbon was used to remove the environmental pollution in the pharmaceutical wastewater effluents. In the present paper, granular activated carbon (GAC) and powdered activated carbon (PAC) were subjected as an adsorbent to reduce the concentration of estradiol valerate (EV) and progesterone (PRO) hormones. The effects of adsorbent amount, initial pH of solution, contact time, initial concentration of pollutant and temperature were studied. Among the pseudo-first-order- and pseudo-second-order kinetic models, the latter fit accurately the experimental data. The highest level of adsorption percentage of the contaminants occurs within the first 480 min. The maximum adsorption capacity and thermodynamic parameters were shown that GAC and PAC can be selected as appropriate and effective pharmaceutical wastewater treatment techniques. In addition, some additional experimental characterizations such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were employed to detect the possible structural changes due to the adsorption of EV and PRO onto the GAC and PAC, which show these hormones have been successfully added onto the adsorbent surface.