Investigation of adsorption/desorption properties of vancomycin on ionic liquid modified magnetic activated carbon in aqueous solutions and cytotoxicity evaluation of synthesized nanoparticles

Effluents containing antibiotics raise concerns due to their potential to promote or sustain bacterial resistance and disrupt essential cycles and processes critical to aquatic ecology, agriculture, and animal farming. Vancomycin is a glycopeptide antibiotic, recognized as the treatment for cases in which other antibiotics are unsuccessful. The efficient elimination of antibiotics plays a crucial role in managing antibiotic pollution. In this work, an ionic liquid-based magnetic activated carbon (IL@mAC) adsorbent was synthesized and utilized for removal of vancomycin in an aqueous solution. Parameters such as pH, dosage of adsorbent, contact time and antibiotic concentration were investigated. The data showed the efficient elimination of vancomycin in the solution. The maximum removal of vancomycin was obtained at pH 6. The optimum contact time and vancomycin concentration were found to be 30 min and 40 mg.L^-1, respectively for 0.6 g of IL@mAC in 50 mL sample solutions. Towards the removal of vancomycin, an adsorption efficiency of 83.4% was achieved for five subsequent cycles of vancomycin adsorption-desorption. The adsorption data for vancomycin fitted well with the Langmuir isotherm, and the maximum sorption capacity of IL@mAC was 132 mg.g^-1. Additionally, cytotoxicity studies indicated that the synthesized IL@mAC was non-toxic to normal Human umbilical vein endothelial (HUVEC) cells at concentrations ≤ 800 mg.L^-1. The use of this system facilitates the rapid and effective removal of vancomycin from wastewater through the application of an external magnetic field.