Sorption of Tetracycline Antibiotics from Water

Antibiotics are used in large amounts as human and veterinary medicine. Due to their use pattern, they possess a potential for reaching the water environment. In recent years great amount of evidence showed that tetracycline antibiotics were frequently detected in aquatic environment. In this paper, the literature on adsorption of tetracyclines (TCs) were reviewed and summarized. Adsorption kinetics, adsorption isotherm, and adsorption mechanism were discussed. The pseudo-second-order kinetics model fit the experimental data best in most cases of adsorption of TCs. Sorption of TCs followed Freundlich or Langmuir isotherm well in all cases. At last, main adsorption mechanisms such as cation exchange, cation bridging at surfaces, surface complexation, and hydrogen bonding could be suggested based on analysis by XRD, FTIR, NMR, HPLC, LC-MS, etc.