Removal of ciprofloxacin from water by millimeter-sized sodium alginate/H3PO4 activated corncob-based biochar composite beads

The removal of ciprofloxacin (CIP) from aqueous system is of great significance for water treatment. Here, millimeter-sized sodium alginate/H 3 PO 4 activated corncob-based biochar composite beads (SA-PB) were prepared by a facile phase inversion method. These beads were characterized with SEM, EDS, FTIR, XRD and Raman. Results showed that SA-PB beads were successfully prepared and endowed the merits from alginate and biochar. SA-PB containing 80 wt% PB (SA-PB80) exhibited excellent CIP sorption capacity, which is much higher than pure SA and those containing 20 wt% and 50 wt% PB. Kinetic results showed that the sorption process could be fitted to pseudo-second-order model. The isotherm data indicated that sorption behavior conformed to the Langmuir model. Furthermore, SA-PB exhibited high tolerance to ionic strength and favorable reusability, and SA-PB also has plentiful desirable advantages such as biodegradability, economy and easily separable for solid-liquid system as well as its efficient CIP capture performance.