abstract
Wastewater treatment plants do not cope well with emerging micropollutants, such as pharmaceuticals, because they are not effective to remove them. Therefore, this work aims to develop a process for the extraction of ofloxacin (OFX) based on a liquid -liquid extraction using hydrophobic eutectic solvents (HES), coupled with the Conductor -like Screening Model for Real Solvent (COSMO-RS) for solvent screening. First, COSMO-RS was used to predict the partition coefficient of OFX for four HES families: L -menthol: fatty acid, L -menthol: fatty alcohol, fatty acid: fatty acid and fatty acid: fatty alcohols, at three different molar ratios (2:1, 1:1, and 1:2). These results showed that HES formed by fatty acids, especially those with a longer alkyl chain and a higher fatty acid molar ratio, were the most suitable solvents for OFX extraction. Then, the most promising HES to extract OFX was evaluated experimentally. The HES decanoic acid: dodecanoic acid (C10 acid: C12 acid) in a molar ratio of 2:1 being the system with best extraction results of OFX was selected to optimize the extraction conditions of OFX, namely pH, HES: water ratio (v/v), and OFX concentration, using a response surface methodology (RSM). The results obtained showed that at a pH of 5.2, HES-water ratio (v/v) of 1.3, and 2.5 mg/ml of OFX that an extraction efficiency of OFX of (98.8 +/- 0.9)% could be achieved. The results show that one-step OFX extraction is possible, but is significantly influenced by both the extraction parameters and the hydrophobic properties of the HES.
keywords
PARTITION-COEFFICIENTS; WASTE-WATER; COSMO-RS; TREATMENT PLANTS; ANTIBIOTICS; PREDICTION; DEGRADATION; TOXICITY; REMOVAL
subject category
Engineering
authors
Moradi, M; Ferreira, AM; Neves, CMSS; Mahmoudabadi, SZ; Pazuki, G; Coutinho, JAP
our authors
Ana Maria da Conceição Ferreira Takahashi
Junior Researcher
Catarina Maia Seco Seiça Neves
Assistant Researcher
Projects
CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials (UIDB/50011/2020)
CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials (UIDP/50011/2020)
Associated Laboratory CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials (LA/P/0006/2020)
Collaboratory for Emerging Technologies, CoLab (EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES)
acknowledgements
This work was developed partly within the scope of the project CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, UIDB/50011/2020 (DOI 10.54499/UIDB/50011/2020), UIDP/50011/2020 (DOI 10.54499/UIDP/50011/2020) & LA/P/0006/2020 (DOI 10.54499/LA/P/0006/2020) , financed by national funds through the FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) . AMF and CSSN acknowledge FCT for the research contracts CEECIND/00361/2022 (DOI 10.54499/2022.00361.CEECIND/CP1720/CT0020) and CEECIND/01975/2017 (DOI 10.54499/CEECIND/01975/2017/CP1459/CT0037) under the Scientific Stimulus - Individual Call, respectively. The authors would like to sincerely thank the Iran Biotech Fund for their financial support with grant number 13951.