Remotion of oxytetracycline and progesterone from farm waste waters using magnetic activated carbon.

MOREL, ROSARIO; RINTOUL, IGNACIO

Montevideo

Simposio; 1st PhD Student Symposium on ?Materials for Energy, Environment and Health? AUGM - BAYLAT; 2021

Association of Universities Grupo Montevideo (AUGM ) and Bavarian University Center for Latin America (BAYLAT)

Livestock is an important source of emerging pollutants such as hormones and antibiotics. Oxytetracycline is a broad-spectrum antibiotic widely used to keep the sanitary conditions in feed-lots and intensive farms facilities. Progesterone is a reproductive hormone used to control the estrous cycle in cattle. The remotion of these compounds from waste waters using a cheap and simple process is a hot technological challenge. The objective of this contribution is the development of a method of production of magnetic activated carbon (MAC) and cheap and simple magnetically assisted process to remove antibiotics and/or hormones from farm waste waters. Methodology: The experimental part includes the development of a method to produce MAC with tailored properties, the study of the adsorption mechanism of oxytetracycline and/or progesterone in MAC and the development of an efficient magnetically assisted remotion process. The reaction conditions to obtain MAC were selected by following an experimental design. The particle size and adsorption capacity of AC and the magnetic susceptibility and amount of adsorbed nanomagnetite were used as main raw data generator. The study of the adsorption mechanism of oxytetracycline and progesterone in MAC was carried out by building their adsorption isotherms and evaluating the effects of pH, ionic strength and hardness of the aqueous media. The magnetically assisted remotion process will be designed by using cost-benefit analysis for industrial investments. Results: A 4-D surface response of the remotion efficiency and calculated cost per cubic meter of waste water in the space of the MAC?s properties and the operation conditions of the magnetically assisted remotion process was obtained. The 4-D surface response results useful to evaluate the feasibility of implementing this technology in the treatment of farms waste waters. Future contributions will be devoted to the production of a pilot amount of MAC and the construction of a pilot device of the magnetically assisted remotion process for testing this technology in real farm waste waters