A Review on the Adsorption Studies of Tetracycline onto Various Types of Adsorbents

Over the past few decades, the usage of antibiotics is growing on a rapid phase. The continuous use in the treatment against several bacterial infections paves a way to increased resistant strains. Environmental pollution created by antibiotics is considered as a serious problem though no toxic reports were known until now. The pharmaceutical compounds present in the environment are known as "Emerging Pollutants." Among antibiotics, tetracycline (TET) class of drugs were known to exist for several years. Within 3–4 years of the discovery of the first class of TET, the resistant strains were also identified. TET usage is not only limited for human therapy but also greatly used in veterinary and agricultural purposes. These compounds have been detected in the environment, especially in aquatic farms, groundwater, surface water, etc., thus, it becomes vital to take some measures in removing these compounds from the ecosystem to some extent. Many degradation methodologies and mechanisms were applied to remove TET but were highly limited to synthetic effluents. Adsorption is a common practice at the industrial level, especially in effluent treatment processes. In this study, removal of TET through adsorption using various adsorbents was reviewed extensively.