South Korean scientists have used PET bottles to create an adsorbent material for the removal of antibiotics from water

As stated in the research from KIST’s Water Cycle Research Center, Professor Choi Jae-Woo and his team extracted high-purity organic ligands from PET bottles, using them to synthesize an adsorbent material that was able to remove antibiotics from water. Through a process called alkaline hydrolysis they were able to obtain pure terephthalic acid by enhancing the efficiency with ultrasound. An iron-based MOF magnetised the terephthalic acid, creating a porous carbon composite that could later be separated out using an external magnetic field. It was able to remove all traces of the antibiotic within one and a half hours when the resulting porous carbon composite was tested.