Pharmaceutical-instigated pollution is a major concern, especially in relation to aquatic environments and drugs such as meropenem antibiotics. Adsorbents, such as multi-walled carbon nanotubes, offer potential as means of removing polluting meropenem antibiotics and other similar compounds from water. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of multi-walled carbon nanotubes in this capacity, various experimental parameters, including contact time, initial concentration, pH, temperature and the dose of adsorbent have been investigated. The Langmuir and the Freundlich isotherm models have been used. The data obtained using a modified Langmuir model have been consistent with the experimental ones; the best pH value has been obtained to have the maximum uptake capacity with the hights coefficient of determination. The adsorption kinetics data is in accordance with pseudo-second order model for adsorption processes, which is in line with the measured data. The results of this thermodynamic research indicate that the reaction that removes meropenem antibiotics from water by adsorption is exothermic. A combination of mechanisms is responsible for meropenem antibiotics adsorption to adsorbent, including electrostatic and π–π EDA interactions, hydrophobic interaction, functional groups and molecule substitution. According to the research findings, multi-walled carbon nanotubes offer a potential method that can be quickly deployed in order to address pharmaceutical contamination of water.
