Hierarchically Annular Mesoporous Carbon Derived from Phenolic Resin for Efficient Removal of Antibiotics in Wastewater.

Antibiotics have become a new type of environmental pollutant due to their extensive use. High-performance adsorbents are of paramount significance for a cost-effective and environmentally friendly strategy to remove antibiotics from water environments. Herein, we report a novel annular mesoporous carbon (MCN), prepared by phenolic resin and triblock copolymer F127, as a high-performance adsorbent to remove penicillin, streptomycin, and tetracycline hydrochloride from wastewater. The MCNs have high purity, rich annular mesoporosity, a high surface area (605.53 m2/g), and large pore volume (0.58 cm3/g), improving the adsorption capacity and facilitating the efficient removal of penicillin, streptomycin, and tetracycline hydrochloride from water. In the application of MCNs to treat these three kinds of residual antibiotics, the adsorption amounts of tetracycline hydrochloride were higher than penicillin and streptomycin, and the adsorption capacity was up to 880.6 mg/g. Moreover, high removal efficiency (99.6%) and excellent recyclability were achieved. The results demonstrate that MCN adsorbents have significant potential in the treatment of water contaminated with antibiotics.

A Minireview for Recent Development of Nanomaterial-Based Detection of Antibiotics.

Antibiotics are considered a new type of organic pollutant. Antibiotic residues have become a global issue due to their harm to human health. As the use of antibiotics is increasing in human life, such as in medicine, crops, livestock, and even drinking water, the accurate analysis of antibiotics is very vital. In order to develop rapid and on-site approaches for the detection of antibiotics and the analysis of trace-level residual antibiotics, a high-sensitivity, simple, and portable solution is required. Meanwhile, the rapid nanotechnology development of a variety of nanomaterials has been achieved. In this review, nanomaterial-based techniques for antibiotic detection are discussed, and some reports that have employed combined nanomaterials with optical techniques or electrochemical techniques are highlighted.

Hierarchically Porous Carbons Derived from Biomasses with Excellent Microwave Absorption Performance.

A variety of biomass-based carbon materials with two-level porous structure have been successfully prepared by one-step carbonization process. The first level of microscale pores templates from the inherent porous tissues, while the second one of nanopores is produced by the in situ etching by the embedded alkaline metal elements. The superimposed effect of nano and microscale pores endows the hierarchically porous carbons (HPCs) with excellent microwave absorption (MA) performance. Among them, the spinach-derived HPC exhibits a maximum reflection loss of -62.2 dB and a broad effective absorption bandwidth of 7.3 GHz. Particularly, this excellent MA performance can be reproduced using the biomass materials belonging to different families, harvested seasons, and origins, indicating a green and sustainable process. These encouraging findings shed the insights on the preparation of biomass-derived microwave absorbents with promising practical applications.

Biodiesel production from rubber seed oil using poly (sodium acrylate) supporting NaOH as a water-resistant catalyst.

Poly (sodium acrylate) supporting NaOH (NaOH/NaPAA) was prepared by in situ polymerization of aqueous solution of acrylic acid with an over-neutralization by adding excess of NaOH. NaOH/NaPAA presented a promising selectivity for water absorbency and good water retention with negligible swelling capacity in the organic solvents of methanol, glycerol, rubber seed oil methyl esters, and rubber seed oil. NaOH/NaPAA catalysts showed a basic strength of 15.0

One-pot process combining transesterification and selective hydrogenation for biodiesel production from starting material of high degree of unsaturation.

A one-pot process combining transesterification and selective hydrogenation was established to produce biodiesel from hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) seed oil which is eliminated as a potential feedstock by a specification of iodine value (IV; 120 g I(2)/100g maximum) contained in EN 14214. A series of alkaline earth metal oxides and alkaline earth metal supported copper oxide were prepared and tested as catalysts. SrO supported 10 wt.% CuO showed the superior catalytic activity for transesterification with a biodiesel yield of 96% and hydrogenation with a reduced iodine value of 113 and also exhibited a promising selectivity for eliminating methyl linolenate and increasing methyl oleate without rising methyl stearate in the selective hydrogenation. The fuel properties of the selective hydrogenated methyl esters are within biodiesel specifications. Furthermore, cetane numbers and iodine values were well correlated with the compositions of the hydrogenated methyl esters according to degrees of unsaturation.