Dehydration kinetics of antibiotic fermentation residues by dehydration agents at room temperature

Abstract

AbstractHarmless disposal of antibiotics fermentation residues (AFRs) is required due to the risk of inducing drug‐resistant via the residual antibiotics. AFRs are rich in colloidal water to be hardly removed by mechanical methods, leading to the energy‐intensive dewatering. Dehydration agents (DAs) can be used to treat the wet AFRs, in which colloidal water was transferred into the hydrate of DA and formed solid AFRs–DA mixture at room temperature. In this article, the dehydration kinetics of AFRs was investigated systematically. The results show that the dehydration followed the first‐order kinetic equation and the main influences were temperature, feed ratio, and the particle size of DA. In addition, the quantitative relationship of kinetic parameters with the feed ratio and temperature were established, providing the basic data for further reducing the energy consumption of AFRs disposal.