Atenolol uptake from pharmaceutical sources onto carbon aerogel prepared by supercritical CO2 drying

[Display omitted] •Equilibrium of Atenolol sorption onto carbon aerogel was reached after 150 min.•Sorption data showed good fit to pseudo-first-order and Chrastil’s models.•qmax of 76.66 mg g−1 pronounced large potential of aerogel for Atenolol removal.•Developed surface area and mesoporosity in the sorbent’s structure were confirmed. Atenolol (ATL) is a popular medication which is widely used to treat hypertension and angina. It is often found in aqueous environments, posing potential risk to human health and ecological well-being. In this study, carbon aerogel was prepared by supercritical CO2 drying of resorcinol–formaldehyde resin subsequently carbonized at 600 °C in an inert atmosphere. This porous material was characterized by SEM, BET, FTIR, and XRD and used for the first time for the removal of ATL from aqueous solutions under varying experimental conditions. Carbon aerogel in the form of microbeads exhibited a relatively high specific surface area of 376.02 m2/g and median pore radius of 9.83 nm. The isotherm models of Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, Redlich-Peterson and Brouers-Sotolongo were used to interpret the equilibrium data. Although most of the applied models fitted the data well, the calculated values for maximum sorption capacity (qmax) showed a huge deviation when compared to experimental value of 76.66 mg/g. The pseudo-first and pseudo-second-order kinetic models, Chrastil’s model, and the intraparticle diffusion model were employed for fitting the kinetic data. The rate of the process was rapid with most of the uptake attained in the first 20 min of the contacting. The sorption optimum was achieved at pH pH 9.0 and for sorbent’s dosage of 750 mg/L. Reusability study of the spent aerogel conducted in seven cycles evidenced slight decrease of approximately 1 % in removal efficiency across the cycles indicating that the sorbent maintained its high effectiveness and stability throughout its usage.