title: Photocatalytic treatment of high concentration carbamazepine in synthetic hospital wastewater.
abstract: Effective and sustainable treatment of hospital wastewater containing high concentration of pharmaceutical compounds presents a pivotal challenge to wastewater and environmental engineers worldwide. In this study, a titanium dioxide (TiO(2)) nanofiber based wastewater treatment process was assessed as a pre-treatment system to treat and enhance the biodegradability of a representative pharmaceutical compound, 5000 μg/L of carbamazepine (CBZ), in synthetic hospital wastewater. Results showed that the stand-alone TiO(2) pre-treatment system was capable of removing 78% of CBZ, 40% of COD and 23% of PO(4) concentrations from the influent wastewater within a 4h reaction time. High performance size exclusion chromatography demonstrated that a simultaneous biodegradability enhancement of hospital wastewater was observed, whereby an apparent shift in molecular weight from higher fraction (>10-1000 kDa) to a lower fraction (<10 kDa) was induced after 0.5h of photocatalytic treatment. Eventually, it was found that the photodegradation profile for high concentration CBZ in synthetic hospital wastewater was perfectly fitted to the Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetics model. It is anticipated that this TiO(2) pre-treatment process can be further integrated with a biological wastewater treatment process to deliver treated hospital effluent of better quality that can minimise the associated human health and environmental risks.
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Land and Water, Ecosciences Precinct, Dutton Park, QLD 4102 Australia. Meng.Chong@csiro.au
authors.forename: Meng Nan
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Chong
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jin
mesh_terms: D002220:Carbamazepine / Q000032:analysis*; D002384:Catalysis; D006761:Hospitals; D007220:Industrial Waste; D007700:Kinetics; D010777:Photochemistry; D014025:Titanium / Q000737:chemistry; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D007220:Industrial Waste; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; C009495:titanium dioxide; D002220:Carbamazepine; D014025:Titanium