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Investigations on the degradation of an antibiotic Cephalexin using suspended and supported TiO 2 : Mineralization and durability studies
Author(s) -
Bansal Palak,
Verma Anoop,
Aggarwal Kashish,
Singh Amanjit,
Gupta Saurabh
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the canadian journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.404
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1939-019X
pISSN - 0008-4034
DOI - 10.1002/cjce.22512
Subject(s) - mineralization (soil science) , photocatalysis , degradation (telecommunications) , durability , nuclear chemistry , slurry , materials science , nitrate , nitrite , wastewater , inorganic ions , catalysis , chemistry , environmental engineering , ion , composite material , environmental science , organic chemistry , nitrogen , telecommunications , computer science
Rising levels of antibiotics in treated wastewater pose a great threat to human health worldwide. The present study shows degradation studies of antibiotic Cephalexin using slurry and innovative fixed‐bed photocatalysis under UVA (365 nm) irradiations. A UV‐spectrophotometer/HPLC was used for analyzing the decay of Cephalexin. Studies showed that variation in UV intensity, dose variation of TiO 2 and H 2 O 2, area by volume (A/V), and pH affect the degradation to a great extent. The degradation rate followed pseudo‐first order kinetics with optimized conditions for degrading the antibiotic being TiO 2 1.0 g · L −1 , H 2 O 2 0.15 mL, with UV intensity of 25 W · m −2 . The COD decrease (80 %) with the generation of nitrite, nitrate, and sulphate ions confirmed the mineralization of the selected compound. TiO 2 ‐coated spherical cement beads were used for fixed‐bed studies, which eliminates the implications of slurry mode photocatalysis. The beads were recycled for at least 50 cycles, which confirmed the durability of the catalyst, and characterized by SEM‐EDAX. Attempts were made to study the pilot‐scale fixed‐bed baffled solar reactor for degrading Cephalexin, which confirmed 70 % degradation after 10 h.