Electro-Fenton Process Studies for Effective Removal of Antibiotic Tetracycline from Hospital Wastewater

Electro-Fenton Process Studies for Effective Removal of Antibiotic Tetracycline from Hospital Wastewater

Antibiotics are one of the most useful medications in human medicine and veterinary which are present in domestic, hospital and pharmaceutical industry sewage. The characteristic such as Non- biodegradability, highly toxicity, carcinogenic and teratogenic effects, ability to hurt DNA and lymphocytes, increasing allergic reactions in humans and expanding resistant bacteria to antibiotics leads to severe health and environmental hazards if they are not removed from wastewater. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the efficiency of electro-fenton process for removing tetracycline from hospital wastewater. In the current work, experimental studies were done by a plexiglas reactor in laboratory scale using Fe electrodes. The effect of various variables including; type of electrolyte, pH solution (3-8), current density (5-20 mA.cm- 2), initial tetracycline concentration (300-1500 mg.L-1) on tetracycline removal efficiency were investigated. The obtained results revealed that in optimized condition, the removal efficiency of tetracycline was 100 % and the consumed energy was 0.253 kWh.m-3. Statistical tests (ANOVA and regression) showed that the designed model had a highly accordance with lab results.