Abstract
Throughout the years, the Industrial Revolution has caused wealthy consumer societies to become increasingly dependent on material goods to enhance their quality of life. Fundamental needs such as food, water, medicine, shelter, clothing, and fuel rely on these materials. As a result, there has been a worldwide increase in production and manufacturing to meet the growing demand for products driven by population growth. This has led to a significant need for the creation and use of various chemicals. However, their escalating presence in the ecosystem has raised major concerns regarding human health and environmental safety. The ongoing release of chemicals over recent decades can cause acute toxicity, and their bioaccumulation can lead to long-term adverse consequences. Consequently, there has been a heightened focus on these emerging contaminants (ECs), particularly given their increased detection across diverse environments, including water systems.
These substances, including pharmaceuticals and trace levels of heavy metals, are present in the environment at minimal levels. However, their behaviour and impact on ecosystems are poorly documented and understood. The low concentrations of these contaminants, combined with the limitations of conventional treatment measures in completely removing them, raise concerns about their potential long-term effects on biodiversity and overall environmental health. Given the reasons outlined above, there is a pressing need to develop fast, simple, effective, cost-efficient, and sensitive analytical methods for the elimination, monitoring, and determination of pollutants of emerging concern in various complex water matrices. Consequently, this study focuses on the preparation of hollow carbon nanospheres (HCNS) from commercial reagents specifically designed for the adsorptive removal of trace metals from water matrices. It also aims to develop a reliable and robust analytical method based on waste-derived hollow carbon spheres (W-HCNS) utilising vortex-assisted dispersive solid-phase extraction (DSPE) combined with high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with a diode-array detector (HPLC-DAD) for the preconcentration and determination of sulfonamides in water samples.
The surface, morphological, and structural characteristics of both commercial and waste-derived carbon-based hollow spheres were examined using a variety of analytical techniques to meet the first and second objectives of the study. These techniques included X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), BET analysis, and Zeta...