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Degradation of ampicillin antibiotic by electrochemical processes: evaluation of antimicrobial activity of treated water

  • Advanced Oxidation Technologies: State-of-the-Art in Ibero-American Countries
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Abstract

Ampicillin (AMP) is an antibiotic widely used in hospitals and veterinary clinics around the world for treating infections caused by bacteria. Therefore, it is common to find traces of this antibiotic in wastewater from these entities. In this work, we studied the mineralization of this antibiotic in solution as well as the elimination of its antimicrobial activity by comparing different electrochemical advanced oxidation processes (EAOPs), namely electro-oxidation with hydrogen peroxide (EO-H2O2), electro-Fenton (EF), and photo electro-Fenton (PEF). With PEF process, a high degradation, mineralization, and complete elimination of antimicrobial activity were achieved in 120-min electrolysis with high efficiency. In the PEF process, fast mineralization rate is caused by hydroxyl radicals (·OH) that are generated in the bulk, on the anode surface, by UV radiation, and most importantly, by the direct photolysis of complexes formed between Fe3+ and some organic intermediates. Moreover, some products and intermediates formed during the degradation of the antibiotic Ampicillin, such as inorganic ions, carboxylic acids, and aromatic compounds, were determined by photometric and chromatographic methods. An oxidation pathway is proposed for the complete conversion to CO2.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the financial support of FONDECYT Grant 1170352, DICYT-USACH, CONICYT FONDEQUIP/UHPLC-MS/MS EQM 120065, Universidad de Antioquia UdeA and to COLCIENCIAS project “Desarrollo y evaluación de un sistema electroquímico asistido con luz solar para la eliminación de contaminantes emergentes en agua” (No. 111565842980 Convocatoria 658, 2014). J. Vidal thanks CONICYT for the National PhD scholarship 21140248 and Pacific Alliance Scholarship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio de Electroquímica del Medio Ambiente (LEQMA), Departamento de Química de los Materiales, Facultad de Química y Biología, Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH), Casilla 40, Correo, 33, Santiago, Chile

    Jorge Vidal, Rocío Santander & Ricardo Salazar

  2. Departamento de Ingeniería Química. Laboratorio de Biotecnología Ambiental, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH), Santiago, Chile

    Cesar Huiliñir

  3. Grupo de Investigación en Remediación Ambiental y Biocatálisis (GIRAB), Instituto de Química, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Antioquia (UdeA), Calle 70 No 52-21, Medellín, Colombia

    Javier Silva-Agredo & Ricardo A. Torres-Palma

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  1. Jorge Vidal
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  2. Cesar Huiliñir
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  3. Rocío Santander
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  4. Javier Silva-Agredo
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  5. Ricardo A. Torres-Palma
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  6. Ricardo Salazar
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Correspondence to Ricardo Salazar.

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Responsible editor: Vítor Pais Vilar

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Vidal, J., Huiliñir, C., Santander, R. et al. Degradation of ampicillin antibiotic by electrochemical processes: evaluation of antimicrobial activity of treated water. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 4404–4414 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-2234-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-2234-5

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