Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) have been identified as "emerging contaminants" of considerable concern, as many members of this large group of compounds (which is defined by their usage, rather than specific physicochemical or biochemical properties) possess significant hazard potential. Although toxicity to humans is usually not an issue at environmentally relevant concentrations, several other negative effects may occur, including acute or chronic toxicity to aquatic organisms, mutagenic or endocrine-disrupting effects as well as potential contributions to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Therefore, the release of PPCPs into the environment should be limited as much as possible, their fate in the environment should be monitored, and strategies for the remediation of contaminated water bodies and soils should be developed. Given the sheer number of distinct PPCPs and the vast variations in their potential environmental impact, it is clear that a prioritization based on the occurrence and hazard potential of individual compounds (also considering their metabolites, decomposition products, and PPCP mixtures ) has to be developed in order to tackle these problems. One particularly relevant PPCP contaminant is carbamazepine (5H-dibenzo[b,f]azepine-5carboxamide, C15H12N2O, abbreviated CBZ in the following), an anticonvulsant that is widely used in the treatment of epilepsy and neuropathic pain. The CBZ molecule, shown in Figure , consists of a tricyclic dibenzazepine system that carries a carboxamide (carbamoyl) group at the nitrogen atom of the azepine ring. It has been established that CBZ is highly persistent in the environment, and that it is hardly degraded or adsorbed during conventional wastewater treatment processes. As a consequence, CBZ can be present in treated wastewater, resulting in an accumulation in plants irrigated with such water. A risk assessment showed that concentrations of CBZ and its main metabolites that are typically observed in surface waters pose no direct risk to human health. On the other hand, its presence may have adverse effects on aquatic organisms. For example, it was demonstrated that environmental levels of CBZ (low µg L -1 range) can disturb the growth and development of embryos and larvae of zebrafish, and alter their response to stimuli. Due to its persistence and hazard potential, CBZ is frequently listed among the "high-priority" PPCP contaminants that should receive particular attention in future studies addressing the monitoring and management of environmental risks. Various wastewater treatment options have been considered to increase the removal efficiency for PPCP contaminants, including advanced oxidation processes (e.g., photolysis, ozonation), adsorption processes using different types of adsorbents, and membrane separations. Not all of these techniques are well suited for the removal of CBZ, which is a particularly recalcitrant contaminant. CBZ removal efficiencies on the order of 20% were observed in the effluents of a sewage treatment plant fitted with a granular activated carbon adsorbent. In contrast, several lab studies have reported significantly higher CBZ removal efficiencies for carbonbased adsorbents, especially for materials having large surface areas, high microporosities, and a large fraction of aromatic carbon atoms. While CBZ can be efficiently eliminated using advanced oxidation processes, the formation of decomposition products that may, in many instances, have a higher hazard potential than the parent compound is problematic (e.g., highly toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic acridine). The possibility of generating toxic decomposition products must be taken into account when assessing viable options for CBZ removal. Zeolites are crystalline microporous materials consisting of a three-dimensional framework of corner-sharing TO4 tetrahedra. In typical aluminosilicate zeolites of natural or synthetic origin, the tetrahedrally coordinated T sites are occupied by Si and Al atoms, and the framework charge is balanced through extra-framework cations or protons. All-silica zeolites have a neutral framework consisting only of SiO4 tetrahedra. As the hydrophobicity increases with increasing Si/Al ratio, high-and all-silica zeolites preferentially adsorb organic species over water, rendering them interesting for the removal of organic contaminants from the aqueous phase. On the lab scale, two different options have been considered with regard to the use of zeolites for the selective adsorption of CBZ from wastewater: On the one hand, they have been studied for adsorption-based CBZ removal, usually envisaging adsorbent regeneration via heating, although other processes like ozone-based regeneration also show some promise. On the other hand, it has been suggested to use them as co-catalysts to enhance the efficiency of advanced oxidation processes, e.g., in photo-Fenton oxidation or catalytic ozonation. With regard to the use as adsorbents, pioneering work was done by Rossner et al., who investigated the adsorption of various contaminants in high-silica zeolites having the FAU and MOR topologies (these three-letter codes represent the framework type code according to the International Zeolite Association IZA ). Studying CBZ concentrations in the ng L -1 range, they observed negligible removal by FAU, and modest removal (efficiency < 50%) by MOR. In contrast, a subsequent study by Martucci et al. investigating the adsorption by FAU-, MOR, and MFI-type zeolites in the mg L -1 range observed a rather high affinity of FAU towards CBZ, which exhibited a fairly steep rise in the adsorption isotherm at low concentrations, as well as having the highest saturation uptake (about 100 mg CBZ per gram of zeolite, compared to about 20 mg g -1 in MOR and MFI). The FAU adsorbent achieved essentially complete removal of CBZ from a real wastewater sample. In addition, these authors carried out Rietveld refinements of CBZ-loaded samples to determine the position of the guest molecules in the pores. An investigation of CBZ adsorption in high-silica MOR-and MFI-type zeolites by De Ridder et al. showed a moderate affinity of MOR, whose pore systems consists of onedimensional channels outlined by twelve-membered rings of tetrahedra (12MRs), but no appreciable removal by MFI, which has 10MR channels. The dimensions of the CBZ molecule were estimated as 4.3 Å × 6.3 Å × 9.0 Å in that work. As 10MR pore openings typically have dimensions on the order of 5.5 Å × 5.5 Å, it appears reasonable to expect that the diffusion of CBZ through such channels will be strongly impeded, if possible at all. Besides studies of individual zeolites, granular composite materials consisting of crystallites of different zeolites (high-silica BEA, MFI, and MOR) held together by a clay-based binder have also been considered. In addition to the above studies, which considered hydrophobic high-silica zeolites, other authors have investigated CBZ adsorption in cation-exchanged FAU-type zeolites having an intermediate Si/Al ratio of 2.8, and onto pristine and surfactant-modified zeolite-rich tuffs. Rather low CBZ uptakes were reported in both cases.