Abstract
Water pollution has become one of the most important challenges across the globe. Antibiotics have been found in high amounts in aqueous media, lowering the quality of water supplies. These substances are extremely harmful to environment and human health. Nanomaterials can effectively remove organic pollutants from contaminated water. Nanoparticles have received significant attention for their exceptional characteristics compared to bulk materials. Metal oxide nanoparticles offer various benefits, including increased surface area, low concentration, and easy separation after treatment. The cephalexin (CPX) adsorption and degradation in aqueous solution have been investigated using synthesized copper oxide nanoparticles (CuONPs) as catalyst. CuONPs are very effective at drug degradation and adsorption due to their potent catalytic and adsorbent activity. CuONPs are synthesized by an eco-friendly and cost-effective green method from malva parviflora leaves, are characterized by TEM, FESEM, XRD, BET, EDX and FT-IR. The green synthesized nanoparticles have a spherical to oval shape and the size range of the nanoparticles is 15-50 nm.
Adsorption is the most versatile and commonly used technology for drug pollution removal, because it is very effective and simple to utilize on a broad scale. Isothermal study and Batch kinetics were used to determine the influence of contact time 1.0 – 600 mins., initial drug concentration in the range 15-45mg/L, basic pH medium, adsorbent dose from 0.005 – 0.02 g/L, and the temperature effect (15-45˚ C) on adsorption capacity were examined. For a contact time of 60 minutes, a drug concentration of 15 mg/L, an adsorbent dosage of 0.01g, and a temperature of 25˚ C, the maximum removal rate was 79.21%. The adsorption equilibrium data were represented by the Freundlich and Langmuir isotherm models. Intraparticle diffusion, pseudo-second order, and pseudo-first order were used to describe the kinetic data. According to the experimental data, the pseudo-first order model is slightly better fitted than pseudo-second order and intraparticle model, whereas Freundlich model is better fitted than Langmuir model.
Photodegradation has become one of the most attended methods due to the breakdown of different kinds of organic pollutants, and the low generation of secondary pollutants. The different parameters such as H2O2 and HCl with nanoparticles and various water samples from different locations of Kurdistan Region are used to examine their effects on cephalexin degradation. The effect of contact time, temperature, and drug concentration is studied, the optimum condition of parameters H2O2 = 1ml, super nano = 3ml, HCl = 1.5ml, contact time = 15 min, temperature = 35 ˚ C and the ideal cephalexin concentration is 2ml which is 6.666 ppm. Under these conditions approximately 87.5 % of the drug was degraded in water solution.
