The Adsorption of Levofloxacin onto Rectorite

Rectorite is a natural interlayer clay mineral with good stability, high dispersion and good adsorbability performance. The behavior and mechanism of rectorite adsorbing levofloxacin in solution is studied with static adsorption experiments. The structural composition and physical properties of rectorite were characterized with BET, XRF and FT-IR. The specific surface area, diameter and the basal spacing of rectorite were 7.54 m2/g, 3.62 nm and 2.50 nm, respectively. The main components of rectorite were SiO2 and Al2O3. The results showed that the adsorption process fit the Langmuir isothermal model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model well. The maximum removal rate occurred at pH6, and the maximum adsorption capacity was 63.38 mg/g. The main adsorption mechanism was ion exchange.