Innovative sequential combination of fixed bed adsorption/desorption and photocatalysis cost-effective process to remove antibiotics in solution

Abstract

In this paper, a Reed-based composite (R) beads, combined with photocatalysis, for the oxidative degradation of fluoroquinolones ciprofloxacin (CIP) in simulated hospital wastewater was developed. It is well known that hospital effluents present very diluted pollution (less than 5 mg/L), The first purpose, which concerns the first step to treat CIP solution (4 mg/L) via adsorption on (R) beads in continuous column system. The second aim was to regenerate the material for the simultaneous R reuse and CIP desorption in a low volume of a highly concentrated solution (≈30 mg/L). The third purpose was to degrade the concentrated solution of antibiotic using continuous and batch photocatalytic reactors. After CIP uptake on R-beads, two acid solutions were investigated for the regeneration step. Indeed desorption process was investigated using acetic acid (0.1 M) and hydrochloric acid (0.1 M) as eluents, leading to a highly concentrated CIP solution (≈30 mg/L) compared to the feed solution (4 mg/L). Consequently, these results provide new study into the application of sequential combination to effectively mineralize antibiotics with continuous treatment.