Investigation of the Efficiency of Coagulation Process for Ciprofloxacin Antibiotic Removal from Aqueous Solution

Antibiotics are a large group of pharmaceutical compounds which are stable in the environment. When they are not being removed during refinery wastewater treatment, they enter receiving water bodies which lead to environmental pollution. This study aimed to investigate the efficiency of alum and poly aluminum chloride coagulants in the removal of ciprofloxacin antibiotic from aqueous solutions. The batch experiments were conducted in this laboratory study. Optimum conditions of pH parameters, slow mixing time, initial concentration of ciprofloxacin, alum concentration, poly aluminum chloride concentration, and turbidity were determined during the process of coagulation on synthetic wastewater using the jar test. Maximum removal efficiency of ciprofloxacin for both coagulants with pH=6 were determined at coagulant concentration of 20 mg/l and ciprofloxacin concentration of 25 mg/L. Moreover, it was estimated at 65% and 64% for poly aluminum chloride and alum, respectively. As the findings indicated, poly aluminum chloride was more efficient than alum for ciprofloxacin removal. Therefore, the coagulation process can be used as an efficient method to remove antibiotics from aqueous solutions.