Electro-adsorption of tetracycline from aqueous solution by carbonized pomelo peel and composite with aniline

Tetracycline is an important broad-spectrum antibiotic. Its overuse can easily cause water and soil pollution. In this study, a carbon electrode was successfully prepared by simple carbonization of a natural material pomelo peel to remove tetracycline from aqueous solution through electro-adsorption. Then the carbon electrode was modified by aniline to improve its mechanical strength. These materials were characterized by XRD, SEM, FT-IR and Zeta Potential, and all these characterizations demonstrated aniline coated on the carbon electrode perfectly. CV tests of electrodes demonstrated that carbon electrode was more inclined to the double layer capacitance, and composite electrode exhibited more properties of the pseudo capacitance. Adsorption experiments showed that adsorption efficiency of the carbon electrode was 95.11% after 3000 s and that of the composite electrode was 92.32% after 5000 s; polyaniline greatly improved the mechanical stability of the composite electrode. The composite electrode with high adsorbability and strong mechanical stability, has potential to treat tetracycline-containing wastewaters.