Evaluation of peroxide assisted multi-oxidation systems for simultaneous removal of pharmaceutical active compounds from aqueous environment

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of peroxide assisted electro-chemical system (ECS) and photo-chemical system (PCS) in eliminating active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Aluminum (Al) and stainless steel (SS) electrodes were used in ECS, whereas visible light (450–495 nm) was applied in PCS to remove acetaminophen (ACT) and ciprofloxacin (CIP) from both mono-component (ACT/CIP) and multi-component (ACT+CIP) systems. The study explored effect of operational parameters, kinetics, and energy requirements for removing APIs using ECS and PCS. The results showed that in ECS, Al electrodes outperformed SS electrodes with 95.15% removal of ACT and 95.52% removal of CIP using four Al electrodes at 15 V for 60 min. On the other hand, PCS at optimal conditions i.e. 16 W light intensity and FeSO4 and H2O2 dose of 0.5 g/L and 0.06 mL/L, respectively resulted in 85.25% ACT and 96.70% CIP removal. The kinetic study demonstrated that the removal of ACT and CIP through ECS followed second-order kinetics, while PCS followed a first-order model. In both ECS and PCS, ACT and CIP exhibited slightly higher removal efficiency in mono-component systems compared to multi-component systems. The EEO for removal of both APIs ranged from 0.05 to 0.3 kWh/kg in ECS and 3.9–15 kWh/kg in PCS. In general, peroxide assisted ECS and PCS both offer effective and efficient means for simultaneous removal of APIs from effluents.