Assessing Banana-Based Activated Carbon as a Biomaterial for the Adsorption of Drug Metabolites in Wastewater: Simulation of an Industrial-Scale Packed Column

The presence of paracetamol and ciprofloxacin in aquatic ecosystems is a cause for great concern due to their harmful effects on human health. The objectives of this investigation are to simulate an industrial-scale adsorption bed for the competitive removal of these pharmaceutical metabolites from effluents using banana-based activated carbon as the adsorbent. Aspen Adsorption simulation software (v.1) was used to model an industrial-scale packed-bed column under different conditions. Freundlich and Langmuir isothermal models were used in combination with the linear driving force (LDF) kinetic formulation. Adsorption efficiencies of 89.57% for paracetamol and 89.57% for ciprofloxacin were achieved using the Freundlich-LDF model, while the Langmuir-LDF model presented efficiencies of 89.60% for paracetamol and 89.59% for ciprofloxacin. This study used machine learning algorithms, combined with analyses of multiple statistical indicators (R2, RMSE, and MAE), to evaluate model performance. Coefficient of determination (R2) values of up to 0.99 were observed in validation and testing. The application of these mathematical models yielded high removal efficiencies, demonstrating the potential of this approach for drug-contaminated effluent remediation and for forecasting the performance of packed columns at scaled-up levels.