Adsorption of doxorubicin- hydrochloride onto garlic-loaded chitosan-poly (acrylic acid)/MWCNTs nanocomposite

This study details the synthesis of a bioactive nanocomposite material designed for drug delivery. It was synthesized using chitosan (CS), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), acrylic acid (AA), and garlic powder (GAR) through free radical polymerization. The primary goal was to assess its effectiveness in removing the anticancer drug Doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX-HCl) from aqueous solutions. The resulting nanocomposite, (CS-co-PAA-GAR/MWCNTs), was thoroughly characterized using FTIR, XRD, FESEM, TEM, BET, BJH, and AFM techniques. The adsorption of DOX-HCl onto the nanocomposite was evaluated using the Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherm models. Results showed strong and desirable adsorption, indicated by a Freundlich isotherm constant (KF) of 1.08 (mg g-1 (mg L-1)-1/n) and a separation factor of 0.9904. Optimal adsorption occurred at a DOX-HCl concentration of 100 mg/L, a temperature of 293 K, and a pH of 6. A significant finding was that increasing the pH level reduced DOX-HCl adsorption and caused dehydrogenation. Furthermore, the Van't Hoff equation revealed that DOX-HCl adsorption exhibited fast kinetics, with a negative thermodynamic ΔH of -9.0381 kJ/mol. This was confirmed by the excellent fit to pseudo-second-order kinetic model (R2 = 0.9997). These findings collectively demonstrate that synthesized nanocomposite effectively removes DOX-HCl from aqueous solutions.