Informatics Publishing Limited

Prateek Pachauri ¹, Rajendra Falwariya ¹, Sangeeta Vyas ², Monika Maheshwari ¹, Raj K. Vyas ¹, A. B. Gupta ³

Affiliations
1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur-302 017, IN
2 Department of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Swami Keshvanand Institute of Technology, Management and Gramothan, Jaipur-302 025, IN
3 Department of Civil Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur-302 017, IN

Abstract

Antibiotics disposed into wastewater reach wastewater treatment plants and surface waters and act as micro-pollutants. As antibiotics pose various problems related to treatment and reuse, it is imperative to remove them from wastewater. In the present paper, adsorption studies have been carried out for removal of amoxicillin using powdered activated carbon (PAC) in a batch mode and granular activated carbon (GAC) in a continuous packed bed column. Removal of antibiotics has also been made using oxidation by H₂O₂. The techniques used for detection of antibiotics require elaborate analytical instrumentation. Being inexpensive and simple technique, monitoring of concentration during removal has been made using COD determination in the present work. It has been found that concentration of amoxicillin has a straight line relationship with COD. Batch adsorption using PAC shows that a maximum of 70% removal can be obtained for a 200 mg/L solution of amoxicillin using a dose of 600 mg/L of PAC. Maximum removal of 60% was obtained for a concentration of 200 mg/L of amoxicillin with a constant dose of 500 mg/L of PAC. In continuous packed bed adsorption using GAC, 90% COD removal was obtained at saturation. A maximum removal of 80% is obtained at a concentration of 200 mg/L of amoxicillin and 24.2% at 1000 mg/L through GAC column. Furthermore, oxidation removes a maximum of 90% COD using a dose 441 mM/L of H₂O₂ (30% w/v). Removal of COD increases from 10% to 60% on increasing dose of H₂O₂ from 44 mM/L to 220 mM/L. Considering removal efficiency, both oxidation and adsorption techniques have their advantages and limitations. Nevertheless, adsorption using activated carbon and oxidation using H₂O₂ provide simple and satisfactory methods to remove antibiotics from wastewater.

Keywords

Amoxicillin Removal, Antibiotics, Activated Carbon, Wastewater, Adsorption, Hydrogen Peroxide.

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