Rapid Method for the Separation and Recovery of Endocrine-Disrupting Compound Bisphenol AP from Wastewater

The removal of bisphenol AP (BPAP) by a multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) was investigated. BPAP, representing typical scenarios for the BPAP-MWCNT interactions, was employed as a probe molecule. It was found that BPAP exhibited great adsorptive affinity to MWCNT, and the adsorption kinetics equilibrium was arrived within 4.0 min following the pseudo-second-order model. The overall rate process was mainly controlled by the external mass transfer. The hydrogen bond, hydrophobic, and pi-pi stacking interactions were dominant factors for the strong adsorption of BPAP, instead of the pH ionic strength and other ionic species in contaminated water. The MWCNT has higher stability within 8 removal-regeneration recycles, and up to 95% of recovery could be obtained by eluting the adsorbed BPAP on MWCNT adsorbent using ethanol/sodium hydrate solution. The results of the experiment on real samples verified the effectiveness for the recovery and removal of BPAP from wastewater samples.