Biodegradable nano carbon-based smart filters for efficient remediation of pharmaceutical contaminants

Emerging chemical contaminants such as pharmaceutical residues in water resources continue to threaten the homeostasis of our ecosystem. We have developed a 'smart-filter' comprising tunable, biodegradable, and commercially amenable pharmaceutical-nano-carbon-scavengers (PNCSs) to efficiently and safely remediate pharmaceutical residues. The PNCS particles successfully removed 63.5 ± 0.4% of carbamazepine, 99.76 ± 0.01% of gemfibrozil and >99.9% of triclocarban from a mixture containing 0.2 μg L^-1 of each by merely using 0.5 mg mL^-1 of PNCS, thus out-performing commonly used scavengers.