Graphene and its counterparts have been widely used for the removal of contaminants from (waste)water but with limited success for the removal of pharmaceutical contaminants. Driven by this need, this study reports, for the first time, the removal of pharmaceuticals from real contaminated water samples using porous graphene (PG) as a filter-based column. This work systematically evaluates the performance of PG as a filter medium for the removal of widely consumed pharmaceutical/emerging contaminants (ECs) such as atenolol, carbamazepine, ciprofloxacin, diclofenac, gemfibrozil and ibuprofen. Several factors were investigated in these column studies, including different reactive layer configurations, bed packing heights (5–45 mm), filter sizes (inner diameter 18–40 mm), adsorbent dosages (100–500 mg-PG) and water bodies (distilled water, greywater, and actual effluent wastewater). Sustainable synthesis of PG was carried out followed by its use as a filter medium for the removal of pharmaceuticals at high concentrations (10.5 ± 0.5 mg/L) and trace concentrations (1 mg/L). These findings revealed that the double-layered PG-sand column outperformed a PG single-layered configuration for the removal of most of the ECs. The removal efficiency of ECs from their solutions was improved by increasing PG dosages and filter bed height and size. Although the treatment of mixed pharmaceutical solutions from different water bodies was affected by the negative interference caused by competing water compounds, the treatment of ECs-contaminated greywater was not severely affected. Our findings suggest that PG, as a highly efficient filter medium, could be used for the removal of emerging pharmaceutical contaminants from water and wastewater.

Foundation industries are under increasing pressure to transform for sustainable development. Ceramics play a key role within foundation industries as a necessary material for building manufacturing facilities. Therefore, transforming the ceramic industry could support changes across other foundation industries as well, making it one of the most important industries to transform. Given the limited finances, staff time, and other resources to support transformative change, this study aims to identify a set of key intervention points to enable transformative change in the ceramic industry in the United Kingdom. A desk-based study, reviewing written industry, government, and scientific materials available in the public domain, was carried out to identify initial key intervention points for transformative change. The PESTLE approach was used to analyse macro factors in political, environmental, social, technological, legal, and economic domains in order to understand how the context enables or constrains change in the ceramic industry. A SWOT analysis was conducted to further consolidate the findings. Our analysis detected over 50 transformative change drivers and barriers and showed that decarbonisation and energy-saving strategies were the main drivers for transforming the UK ceramic industry. On the other hand, foreign government policy and legislation, trade barriers, skills shortages, and costly alternative energy sources were among the major barriers.

Emerging contaminants (ECs) continue to threaten our fragile ecosystem, yet their mitigation remains limited by economic factors. Meanwhile, a relatively expensive material, Graphene Oxide (GO), has shown promise as a solution for EC removal following further development into three graphene-based materials (GBMs): Porous graphene adsorbent (PGa), Graphene-oxide foam adsorbent (GOFa), and the hybrid filter. Due to the nuances of each synthesis process, financial costs will differ throughout the GBMs’ life cycle which have been quantified and compared in the present work at a range of possible breakthrough times. Finally, economic and environmental costs have been combined for each technology to compare eco-efficiency. Results demonstrated a substantial economic advantage of the GBMs when compared to alternative technologies, most notably the GOFa filter that incurred the lowest life-cycle costs at $1.73 ± 0.09/m³. This was mainly attributed to the lower demand of GOFa on the most expensive material required for material synthesis, hydrazine. In addition, the material demands of GOFa were more evenly distributed which suggest a higher resilience of the overall costs to price hikes of individual materials required for synthesis. In terms of eco-efficiency the GOFa filter also demonstrated the greatest improvement when compared to the reference technology These results have provided robust total investment costs for several technologies that can now offer contrast to other EC-removal solutions.

Pharmaceuticals have emerged as a new class of ecological pollutants and have majorly contributed to harmful effects on the environment and human health. The presence of these pharmaceuticals in wastewater treatment plants, ground, and seawater has been reported widely. Organic dyes and other organic contaminants which are being considered as emerging contaminants are now in the race among the top organic pollutants that need effective treatment. Removal of these contaminants via green adsorbents has become an essential requirement towards a green and cleaner environment. Herein, we report the efficacy of the novel greener porous graphene obtained via the near-green synthesis method as an adsorbent material for treating seven organic pollutants: Methyl orange, Methyl red, Rhodamine-B, Ciprofloxacin, Atenolol, Ibuprofen, and Carbamazepine. Batch tests were conducted to investigate the effect of adsorption time and varying adsorbent dosages. The obtained greener porous graphene showed fast kinetics, which was determined to be guided by pseudo second-order kinetics and the maximum pollutant removal efficiency (>80%) was seen at a high adsorbent dosage (2 mL injected from a 5 g/L solution). Furthermore, the nonlinear adsorption modeling confirmed that the greener porous graphene followed the Langmuir model for the dye rhodamine-B sorption and the Freundlich model for all the other six contaminants. This greener porous graphene can be considered an effective adsorbent for the removal of organic pollutants in wastewater.