The article was published in Nanomaterials.
As a result of the constant increase in the use of drugs, the accumulation of antibiotics and their breakdown products in wastewater has become a serious problem for humans and the environment. Most often, antibiotics enter rivers and groundwater as waste from pharmaceutical companies, medical and pharmacy facilities, and agriculture. The presence of antibiotics in water leads to the growth of bacteria and microorganisms resistance to them, the development of allergic reactions, and even the multiplication of dangerous bacteria.
Currently, there are various methods of wastewater treatment. However, each method has its own limitations. One of the simplest and inexpensive methods of purification, which do not require complex production structures or additional chemical reactions is sorption. This is what the researchers at the Laboratory of Digital Materials Science and the Scientific Research Center "Inorganic Nanomaterials" have focused on. There is no need to create special expensive equipment or artificially introduce additional chemical or biologically active components that can disturb the ecological balance. It is enough just to pass contaminated water through a filter or suspension of boron nitride nanoparticles.
The sorbent created by the researchers based on hexagonal boron nitride is able to effectively clean antibiotic wastewater. Researchers chose three types of antibiotics, which are among the most common pollutants: ciprofloxacin, tetracycline and bicillin.
In the future, scientists are planning to increase the sorption capacity of nanoparticles by applying a polymer or metal ion deposition, as well as to expand the range of antibiotics studied.
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