REMOVAL OF THE SULFAMETHOXAZOLE ANTIBIOTIC WITH OZONE AND ORDERED MESOPOROUS ALUMINA

C. DI LUCA; INCHAURRONDO, N.; M. OTEGUI; L. DOUMIC; S. ESPLUGAS; P. HAURE

Santa Fe

Congreso; X Congreso Argentino de Ingeniería Química (XCAIQ); 2019

Summary. Ordered mesoporous alumina (MA) was synthetized by the evaporation induced self-assembly methodology and tested for the ozonation of sulfamethoxazole (SMX).The synthesis procedure produced ordered mesoporous alumina whose surface and structural properties exceeded those of commercial types. The MA sample displayed a BET surface area of 263 m2/g, a pore volume of 0.8 cm3/g and aligned cylindrical pores with a narrow pore size distribution centered at 10 nm (N2 Physisorption and TEM).The ozonation of SMX (20 mg/L) was carried out in a semibatch stirred tank reactor at: T = 22 ºC, [O3]gas = 10 mg/L NTP, Qgas = 40 L/h NTP, [mass] = 1 g/L, t = 120 min. Single ozonation at different initial pH, without alumina, allowed to achieve fast and complete SMX removal and mineralized up to 35% of SMX at neutral pH. The addition of MA did not affect the rate of SMX removal; however, the solid material allowed a remarkable TOC removal of 80%.To better understand the role of MA, the contribution of adsorption versus the potential catalytic contribution of the material was assessed. For these experiments, MA behaved as a strong adsorbent at both acidic and neutral pH values, without registering catalytic effect. Furthermore, after four successive reuses of 120 min, MA reduced its adsorption performance (XTOC = 36%) due to chemisorption of reaction intermediaries. Nevertheless, the used material was able to regenerate by direct ozonation in gas phase (CO3in = 60 mg/L NTP; 30 min).