Efficiency of Catalytic Ozonation by MgO Nanoparticles to Remove Ceftriaxone from Aqueous Solution

Ceftriaxone is widely used for healing the infectious diseases. Not being treated in hospital wastewater treatment systems, this antibiotic has the possibility of entering into the aqueous environmental and the danger of microbial resistance in these environments also increases. This study aims to examine the efficiency of catalytic ozonation process by using magnesium oxide nanoparticles to remove ceftriaxone from aqueous solutions. In this study, the effect of pH, ozone dose, reaction time, catalyst dose and initial antibiotic concentration for ceftriaxone removal were studied using a cylindrical-shaped experimental reactor through semi-batch method. The residual concentration of ceftriaxone was determined by spectrophotometer. The experiment was carried out based on the one factor at a time method and finally the optimum efficiency of ceftriaxone removal and its desired conditions were determined. The best condition of the reactor obtained in pH 11, the catalyst dose of 1g/l, ozone dose of 18.384mg/min, pollution concentration of 10mg/l and reaction time of 30 min which showed 86% of ceftriaxone removal. Due to an increase in ozone retention time, the use of magnesium oxide nanoparticles in ozonation process also increased the antibiotic removal. It leads to a decrease in treatment costs because of a decrease in ozone consumption in an industrial scale.