Abstract
Conventional treatment processes are not effective in removing micropollutants such as antibiotics and other drugs present in wastewater, and degradation methods based on advanced oxidative processes become attractive. Herein, it was synthesized Fe3-xO4-y-TiO2 particles by coprecipitation method and they were heat-treated at 100, 400, and 800 �C. The obtained solids were characterized by X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analysis and analytical determinations were performed using ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometry. The particles were evaluated in photoperoxidation processes on the degradation of the ciprofloxacin antimicrobial in an aqueous solution. The studies took place at pH 9; with an H2O2 concentration of 31 mg L�1 and particle mass 0.22 g L�1 previously defined and, in these conditions, degradation percentages between 40 and 85% were observed, with the removal in the Photo/H2O2/Fe3-xO4-y-TiO2 800 �C. The kinetic study performed for this process revealed the process adjusts to the first-order kinetics during the 120 min of reaction. The use of the catalyst can be attractive with the potential for degradation of the studied antimicrobial.
Highlights
Studies on residual drugs in the environment are topics of great relevance today (Costa Junior et al, 2014)
It was obtained 7.9 g of Fe3-xO4y-TiO2 particles and they presented densities of 0.35 g mL-1 for the particles treated at 100 °C, 0.5 g mL–1 for 400 °C, and 0.6 g mL–1 for 800 °C (Fig. 1)
This increase in density possibly resulted from the modification of the particle structure and the elimination of residual inputs from the synthesis
Summary
Studies on residual drugs in the environment are topics of great relevance today (Costa Junior et al, 2014). With the growth of the world population, the consumption of medicines has increased significantly in the last decades; as a result, these compounds are found in sewage treatment plant effluents, in water supplies, and various environmental compartments (Bound et al, 2006; Luo et al, 2014; Rogowska et al, 2020). One of the groups of residual drugs that attracts attention is antibiotics due to their potential effect on the development of resistant bacteria in the environment (Barancheshme and Munir, 2019; Karkman et al, 2018). The effective concentration of emerging pollutants, such as antibiotics, in the various environmental matrices directly depends on the efficiency of the treatment processes applied to wastewater in treatment plants (Leung et al, 2012; Wu et al, 2016)
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