Removal of Cefixime from Water Using Rice Starch by Response Surface Methodology

Remaining pharmaceutical compounds cause environmental pollution. Therefore, refining these compounds has become a major challenge. In this study, the function of eliminating Cefixime (CFX) using rice starch was evaluated under controlled conditions.

Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used to design, analyze, and optimize experiments, and the interaction between four variables including pH (3-9), rice starch dose (0–300 mg/L</em>), CFX initial concentration (0–16 mg/L</em>) and time (20–120 min</em>) was investigated on CFX removal.

The optimum pH, starch dose, initial concentration and time were 4.5, 225 mg/L</em>, 7.9 mg/L</em> and 95 min</em>, respectively. The maximum efficiency of CFX removal was 70.22%. According to RSM, this study follows a quadratic model (R2</sup>=0.954).

Rice starch has been successful in removing CFX from the aqueous solution. Therefore, it is recommended to utilize this process to remove CFX from aqueous solutions.