Biodegradable nano carbon-based smart filters for efficient remediation of pharmaceutical contaminants

Abstract

Emerging chemical contaminants such as pharmaceutical residues in water resources continue to threaten the homeostasis of our ecosystem. We have developed a ‘smart-filter’ comprising tunable, biodegradable, and commercially amenable pharmaceutical-nano-carbon-scavengers (PNCSs) to efficiently and safely remediate pharmaceutical residues. The PNCS particles successfully removed 63.5 ± 0.4% of carbamazepine, 99.76 ± 0.01% of gemfibrozil and >99.9% of triclocarban from a mixture containing 0.2 μg L⁻¹ of each by merely using 0.5 mg mL⁻¹ of PNCS, thus out-performing commonly used scavengers.