Comparing the efficacy of various methods for sulfate radical generation for antibiotics degradation in synthetic wastewater: degradation mechanism, kinetics study, and toxicity assessment

15Citations
Citations of this article
32Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

In the present study the aim was to investigate and compare various activation processes for amoxicillin degradation. UV radiation, ultrasound, heat, and hydrogen peroxide were selected as the persulfate activation methods. The effects of various parameters such as pH, persulfate concentration, reaction time, AMX concentration, radical scavengers, and anions were thoroughly investigated. The results showed that AMX degradation was following the pseudo-first order kinetic model. The reaction rate of 0.114 min−1 was calculated for the UV/PS process, which was higher than that of the other investigated processes. The AMX degradation mechanism and pathway investigations revealed that sulfate and hydroxyl radicals were responsible for the degradation of AMX by two degradation pathways of hydroxylation and the opening of the β-lactam ring. Competition kinetic analysis showed that the second-order rate constant of AMX with sulfate radicals was 8.56 × 109 L mol−1 s−1 in the UV/PS process. Cost analysis was conducted for the four investigated processes and it was found that 1.9 $m−3 per order is required in the UV/PS process for the complete destruction of AMX. Finally, cytotoxic assessment of the treated effluent on human embryonic kidney cells showed a considerable reduction in AMX-induced cell cytotoxicity, proving that the investigated process is sufficiently capable of completely destroying AMX molecules to nontoxic compounds. Therefore, it can be concluded that UV radiation is much more effective than other methods for persulfate activation and can be considered as a reliable technique for antibiotic removal.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Behnami, A., Aghayani, E., Benis, K. Z., Sattari, M., & Pourakbar, M. (2022). Comparing the efficacy of various methods for sulfate radical generation for antibiotics degradation in synthetic wastewater: degradation mechanism, kinetics study, and toxicity assessment. RSC Advances, 12(23), 14945–14956. https://doi.org/10.1039/d2ra01618d

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free