Facile synthesis of micro and nano sized iron based metal organic frameworks for optimization of effective metronidazole removal

Belgin Gözmen | Meral Turabik

The widespread application of antibiotics has led to pollution of aquatic systems with long-lasting pharmaceutical residues that pose serious environmental hazards and encourage antibiotic resistance. Metronidazole (MNZ), which belongs to the class of nitroimidazoles used widely, can commonly be traced to occur in water bodies as it possesses high persistence in the environment. To address this issue, this study reports the synthesis of micro and nano sized MIL-101(Fe) metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), or mMIL-101(Fe) and nMIL-101(Fe), by solvothermal and ultrasonic-assisted solvothermal methods, respectively. Comprehensive physicochemical characterization confirmed the successful synthesis of highly porous materials, with mMIL-101(Fe) exhibiting octahedral crystals with average size 2.3 μm...