Ciprofloxacin Removing from Aqueous Solutions Using Batch Reactor Electrocoagulation Process with Aluminum Electrodes

Abstract

Increasing the reliance on pharmaceuticals such as analgesics, antibiotics, antidepressants, and other medications harms the environment and human health. The electrocoagulation process is a modern and crucial technology for treating various pollutants. This paper uses electrocoagulation technology (EC) to remove the most widely used antibiotic, ciprofloxacin (CIP) from an aqueous solution. The proposed approach was experimentally implemented in a batch reactor equipped with (aluminium sheets) that act as electrodes (cathode and anode) arranged vertically in a monopolar parallel mode (MP-P). Different operating parameters were considered, in this work, including inter-electrode distance (IED), pH of the solution, current density (CD), electrolysis time (ET), initial concentration of CIP (Co), and concentration of supporting electrolyte NaCl. Several experiments were performed, and the results revealed that EC has successfully applied with a high removal efficiency of 98.48% under optimum operating conditions: a gap between electrodes = 1 cm, current density = 1.5 mA/cm2, electrolysis time = 60 min, pH = 5, initial CIP concentration = 50 mg/l, and NaCl = 500 mg/l. The experimental results confirmed that the EC process provides a strategy for removing CIP from wastewater with a high removal efficacy and low energy consumption, additionally offering an increased opportunity for using Al-EC cells to treat antibiotic contaminants.