Coal Dissolution Kinetics and its Potentials in the Aqueous Phase Abatement of Antibiotics from Binary Solution

Adsorption and dissolution kinetics were carried out to assess the performance of Okobo coal for the sorptive treatment of the solution of Ampiclox as well as the ability of the adsorbent to withstand dissolution using analytical techniques. The Okobo coal adsorbent was activated by impregnating it with 1M H3PO4. Batch adsorption method was adapted for the adsorption kinetics while gravimetric method was used for the dissolution kinetics of the coal in Acid and Base. The Attrition of the adsorbent was (5.4 %), conductivity (26 μS/cm), pH (6.11), Bulk density (1.78±0.03 g/cm3), specific surface area (189.4 m2/g) and Iodine number (1235.79 mg/g). All these values were similar to other activated carbon adsorbents worked with in literatures. The FTIR shows clear peaks after adsorption indicating the presence of new bonds which were coming from the adsorbate. For the kinetic models plotted only the Second order kinetic model describe best the adsorption of the Ampiclox onto Okobo coal. The Second order model’s R2 value for the adsorption of Ampiclox (AMP) was 0.9910 while (CLO) was 0.9810. The dissolution model were also applied for the dissolution kinetic study of the Okobo coal and all showed a poor data fitting of dissolution of the adsorbent except for the Second order model which showed some levels of applicability with R2 values above 0.6. The statistical analyses obtained indicated that there was no statistical difference between the adsorption of Ampiclox by Okobo coal adsorbent and CAC while for the dissolution studies clear difference exist between the dissolution of adsorbent in 0.1 M HCl and H2O, 0.1 M NaOH and H2O but not 0.1 M HCl and 0.1 M NaOH. Therefore, it can be concluded that the adsorbent prepared is a potential adsorbent for antibiotic remover or detoxification