Abstract
The eradication of sulfamethoxazole (SMX) and phenol from water sources is critical due to their detrimental impact on the aquatic ecological balance. In this study, a porous graphene-like carbon (GLC-900) material was synthesized using glucose as the carbon precursor via pyrolysis at 900 °C. The GLC-900 characterization shows a significant Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area of 935.24 m²/g, enhancing its adsorption capacity for both SMX and phenol. The adsorption capacities for SMX and Phenol were 289.23 and 231.73 mg/g, respectively, as determined by the Langmuir model. The porous structure of GLC-900 enabled rapid adsorption, with equilibrium reached within 60 min for both pollutants. Thermodynamic analysis confirmed that the process was spontaneous, endothermic, and driven by physisorption. The physisorption between GLC-900 and the pollutants involved was demonstrated via hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic interactions, and π-π stacking interactions, as confirmed by advanced analytical techniques and experiments. Additionally, GLC-900 maintained its removal efficiency for SMX and Phenol over four reuse cycles with above 90% removal. These findings suggest that GLC-900, as a biobased material with high adsorption capacity and fast kinetics, holds significant potential for wastewater treatment applications.
Data availability
The datasets used and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author (Prof. Janardhan Reddy Koduru) on a reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Kwangwoon University 2025 Research Fund, and this study was also supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea, under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Science and ICT, under grant number: 2021R1F1A1063793.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea, under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Science and ICT, under grant number: 2021R1F1A1063793.
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Lakshmi Prasanna Lingamdinne, Ganesh Kumar Reddy Angaru : Conceptualisation, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Writing-Original Draft; Bhanu Shrestha : Data Analysis and Validation; Janardhan Reddy Koduru: Methodology, Supervision, Project Administration, Validation and Funding acquisition, writing review-editing; Rama Rao Karri : Validation, Writing review-editing.
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Lingamdinne, L.P., Angaru, G.K.R., Shrestha, B. et al. High-performance adsorption of sulfamethoxazole and phenol using graphene-like carbon derived from glucose. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-39165-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-39165-4