Degradation of antibiotic norfloxacin in aqueous solution using advanced oxidation processes (AOPs)A comparative study

The consumption of antibiotics in today's world has increased tremendously and as such they are frequently found in effluents, sewage treatment plants, hospital waste water and surface water like lakes and rivers. The aquatic organisms are severely affected due to the presence of these antibiotics. Moreover, as these antibiotics are mostly recalcitrant, biological treatment methods are not feasible. Hence, the present study is focused on the treatment of one such antibiotic called norfloxacin using advanced oxidation processes (AOPs). The parameters considered in this study include the effect of UV, initial pH of the recalcitrant solution, UV/H2O2, Fenton, photo-Fenton process, UV/TiO2 and UV/TiO2 immobilization with glass beads. Among all the processes studied, photo-Fenton process has found to be effective and removed 96% of the norfloxacin. The optimum conditions obtained for the maximum degradation with photo-Fenton process are: pH 3, H2O2 concentration of 200mg/L and iron concentration of 30mg/L, for an initial drug concentration of 150ppm.