Facile synthesis of acid catalyzed sulfonic acid-amide functionalized magnetic sodium alginate and its efficient adsorption for ciprofloxacin and moxifloxacin

Environmentally friendly magnetic sodium alginate beads with glutaraldehyde cross-linking catalyzed by acetic acid-hydrochloric acid were successfully designed ([email protected]), and the magnetic bio-sorbents after amide reaction ([email protected]) were utilized to absorb fluoroquinolone antibiotics in water. After amidation, [email protected] exhibited strong pH adaptability (pH = 6.0–12.0). Langmuir and pseudo-first-order models can better describe the isotherm and kinetic process well, respectively. Under the optimization conditions with pH = 7 and temperature of 318.15 K, the maximum adsorption capacities of [email protected] on the third-generation FQs ciprofloxacin (CIP) and the fourth-generation FQs moxifloxacin (MOX) respectively reached 365.66 and 149.57 mg g−1. The thermodynamics research indicated that the as-prepared [email protected] is spontaneous and feasible. And after five adsorption cycles, the loss of adsorption capacity was less than 20% for both CIP and MOX, demonstrating the fine reusability and stability of the designed magnetic bio-sorbent. This study provides some ideas for facile synthesis of acid-catalyzed sodium alginate-glutaraldehyde cross-linking, which has promising applications in grafting various types of groups onto the retained carboxyl groups of sodium alginate spheres for the various contaminants removal in wastewater.