Removal Of Ciprofloxacin From Waste Water By Photocatalytic Method With Waste Polystyrene And Tio2 Composites

Ciprofloxacin (CIP) is one of the widely used antibiotics. Since ciprofloxacin in the aquatic ecosystem adversely affects human health as well as other organisms, it must be removed from wastewater. The aim of this study was to develop polystyrene (PS) and TiO2 composites that can be used as catalysts in CIP removal by photocatalytic process. Waste PS was used in these composites. This is important in terms of the use of one waste in the removal of another waste. This process is optimized using Box-Behnken Design. Parameters such as the amount of polymer in the composite, pH and initial CIP concentration were studied and their effects on CIP removal were investigated. The validity and adequacy of the selected model were evaluated according to the relevant statistical data. These are R2= 0.9751, adjusted R2=0.9565, the model's p-value <0.0001 and the lack of fit-value 0.246. In the process carried out under optimum conditions, the CIP removal was found to be 95.01% at the end of 180 minutes. This value was predicted as 94.37% in the model. According to these results, it was seen that the model represents the real process with high accuracy.