Shilpa Yakkerimath^1,2,, Raviraj M. Kulkarni^1,2,*,, Sanjaykumar V. Divekar¹, Vaibhav R. Chate^2,3, and Bekal Purandara^3,

¹Department of Chemistry, KLS Gogte Institute of Technology (Autonomous) affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University, Udyambag, Belagavi-590008, India

²Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, KLS Gogte Institute of Technology (Autonomous) affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University, Udyambag, Belagavi-590008, India

³Department of Civil Engineering, KLS Gogte Institute of Technology (Autonomous) affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University, Udyambag, Belagavi-590008, India

*Corresponding author: E-mail: ravirajmk@git.edu

The adsorption behaviour of natural clay (NC) and thermal activated clay (TAC) mineral of the Panchanganga river flood zone sediment for levofloxacin (a class of fluoroquinolone antibacterial drug) has been studied. The isotherm and kinetic studies were performed using the batch technique. The results showed that TAC has 72.6% removal efficiency comparatively higher than NC, which is 62.8% at 120 min, pH = 7, dosage 0.40 g/L and Initial concentration of 18.69 mg/L. The kinetic and isotherm results indicate the adsorption of levofloxacin on NC and TAC follows Freundlich isotherm suggesting multilayer sorption and chemisorption as a rate-limiting step during the process. A plausible mechanism is proposed for the interaction of NC and TAC with levofloxacin from the results of the adsorption study. The negative free energy change and positive enthalpy change indicated that the adsorption process is spontaneous and endothermic.

Levofloxacin, Adsorption, Panchganga river, thermal activated clay, Natural Clay.