I. Saidi, I. Soutrel, F. Fourcade
Oct 15, 2013
Citations
1
Influential Citations
17
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Journal
Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry
Abstract
Abstract The main objective of this study was to examine the feasibility of coupling an electrochemical process with a biological treatment for the degradation of sulfamethazine, a biorecalcitrant antibiotic. The electrochemical behavior of sulfamethazine was examined by cyclic voltammetry, showing an electroactivity in oxidation. The pre-treatment was carried out using an electrochemical flow cell involving a graphite felt electrode of high specific area. After a single pass through the cell, the analysis of the electrolyzed solution showed a promising trend in view of the proposed combined process, namely a high degradation of the target compound (more than 90%) while the mineralization level remained low (it did not exceed 20%). The optimization of the operating conditions, viz. flow rate and applied potential, allowed to improve the biodegradability of sulfamethazine solutions. Indeed, under optimal conditions, the biodegradability based on the BOD 5 on COD ratio measurement was improved from 0.08 to 0.58, namely above the threshold limit value (0.4).