ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Ozonation and Photo-Driven Oxidation
of Ciprofloxacin in Pharmaceutical Wastewater:
Degradation Kinetics and Energy Requirements
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1
Sustainable Development Study Center, GC University, Lahore, Pakistan
2
Quality Operations Laboratory, UVAS, Lahore, Pakistan
Submission date: 2018-03-02
Final revision date: 2018-04-23
Acceptance date: 2018-04-26
Online publication date: 2018-12-11
Publication date: 2019-02-18
Corresponding author
Rabia Wajahat
Sustainable Development Study Center, GC University, Lahore, Pakistan, katechry road, 54000 lahore, Pakistan
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2019;28(3):1933-1938
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ABSTRACT
Pharmaceutical wastewater has become an important source for emitting antibiotics into aquatic
environments. However, this study aims to evaluate the potential of different advanced oxidation
processes like ozonation, photolysis, and photo-catalysis for degrading a fluoroquinolone antibiotic
ciprofloxacin (CIP) in real pharmaceutical wastewater. The raw wastewater contains a high concentration
of organic content (COD: 603 mg/L, BOD: 116 mg/L) and significant concentration of CIP (7.91 mg/L).
In ozonation, compared with the acidic and basic conditions, the degradation rate was faster under
basic conditions and showed a competently degraded CIP (up to 98.7%) under the optimum pH 9
within 30 min, whereas photo-catalysis by using commercial anatase (TiO2) is considered to be the
most effective technique for decreasing the concentration of CIP up to 100% within 30 min under the
optimized TiO2 dose (1000 mg/L). The degradation rate was quicker and found to be several times faster
than in direct photolysis. Furthermore, electrical energy per order was also calculated for all processes
and was obvious by the results that photo-catalysis consume less energy of about 8.7 kWh/m3, for almost
complete deduction of CIP.