ANTIBIOTICS SEPARATION FROM PHARMACEUTICAL WASTEWATER USING CERAMIC TIO2 NANOFILTRATION MEMBRANEA.N. AHMED, K.W. ABDULRAHMAN AND F.M. MOHAMMEDAbstract The presence of antibiotics can be detected in the drains of both sewage units and industrial wastewater units, in additions to the possibility of their presence in drinking water treatment units. These compounds about concern might actuate dangerous impacts on various aquatic organisms and in a form that can cause a negative impact on the biological balance of the aquatic environment. Experimental set-up for bench scale of new highly performance ceramic membrane filtration was designed. An experimental study is carried out using Amoxicillin and Flagel (Metronidazole) as a model contamination in order to determine the separation and fouling behavior of these two modeled from pharmaceutical wastewater using 0.9 nm tubular titanium dioxide ceramic nano-filteration membrane. The lowest and highest rejection behavior of 50 and 250 mg l-1 Amoxicillin and Falgel concentrations were found to be (85% and 77%) and (64% and 52%) at applied trans-membrane pressure of 5.0 bar, respectively. The permeation flux for both antibiotics was over 13 l m-2 hr-1 and the linear stability of this flux was indicated good potential for recovery of Amoxicillin and Metronidazole from pharmaceutical wastewater. The present work suggested a concentration of 500 mg l-1 for both antibiotics to study the fouling behavior by measuring the membrane permeation volume flux as a function of filtration time (up to 32 hr). Experiments were carried out the same operating conditions and it is found that the fouling rate of Amoxicillin was higher than that of metronidazole. It was also observed that concentration polarization of solute existed in this separation process. |