Turning Waste into Treatment: Sugarcane Bagasse Biochar for Sustainable Removal of Pharmaceuticals and Illicit Drugs from Wastewater

This study evaluates the bioadsorption efficiency of sugarcane bagasse (SCB) for removing pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs—such as acetaminophen, atenolol, caffeine, carbamazepine, diclofenac, orphenadrine, losartan, enalapril, citalopram, cocaine, and benzoylecgonine—from wastewater effluents. In Brazil, where 46% of the population lacks access to sewage systems, and over 5.3 billion pharmaceutical packages are consumed annually, untreated discharges contribute significantly to aquatic contamination. Results show that applying SCB biochar at a 1% (m/v) ratio removes up to 99.8% of these compounds at total concentrations of 140 ng mL−1, reducing the ecological risk from high to low for caffeine and losartan. SCB offers several advantages as a bioadsorbent: it is abundant, non-toxic, inexpensive, easy to handle, and exhibits high adsorption capacity and rapid kinetics across a wide range of chemical polarities. These findings highlight SCB’s potential as a sustainable and efficient material for wastewater treatment applications.