A DFT study on the adsorption of benzodiazepines to vermiculite surfaces

• Published in: Journal of molecular modeling 2014-07, Vol.20 (7), p.2336-2336, Article 2336
• Main Authors: Carvalho, A. J. Palace, Dordio, A. V., Ramalho, J. P. Prates
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Computer Appl. in Life Sciences; Computer Applications in Chemistry; Molecular Medicine; Original Paper; Theoretical and Computational Chemistry; Topical Collection QUITEL 2013
• ISSN: 1610-2940; 0948-5023
• DOI: 10.1007/s00894-014-2336-z

Widespread use of pharmaceuticals such as benzodiazepines has been resulting over the last decades in the dissemination of residues of these compounds in the environment, and such fact has been raising increasing concern. The generally low efficiencies of conventional wastewater treatment processes for the removal of this type of pollutants demands for the development of alternative or complementary water and wastewater treatment technologies, among which adsorption processes have been gaining popularity, provided that cheap efficient adsorbents are found. Clay materials have been one of the popular choices in this regard. In the present study, quantum chemical calculations have been performed by periodic DFT using the projector augmented-wave (PAW) method to characterize the interactions of two benzodiazepine molecules, alprazolam and diazepam, with a surface of clay mineral, vermiculite. It was observed that both molecules interact strongly with the vermiculite surface, both through a water-bridge binding and by cation-bridge provided by the exchangeable Mg 2+ cations of the vermiculite surface. The results point to an interesting potential of vermiculite to be used efficiently as filter medium to remove these pollutants from water and wastewater.