Modeling of Radiolytic Degradation of Cefaclor by Ionizing Energy

Recently, many researches have been conducted on the treatments of antibiotics found in groundwater, surface water, and wastewater. Ingerslev et al. showed that antibiotics under aerobic and anaerobic conditions were not readily biodegradable. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have been suggested in recent years as a suitable alternative for the removal of refractory organic compounds found in a variety of environment. AOPs by using free radicals such as the hydroxyl radical (·OH) include ozone, ozone/UV, TiO2 photo catalysis, fenton's reaction, H2O2/UV, H2O2/O3 and ionizing radiation. Herein are reported the results of the radiolytic degradation of cefaclor. This study focused on the use of gamma radiation as an AOP for the complete mineralization of antibiotics. Among the many kinds of antibiotics, the target antibiotic in this study was cefaclor, which a β lactam antibiotic widely used for the medical treatment of microbial infective diseases. The objectives of this study were: 1) to investigate the decomposition and mineralization of cefaclor using gamma irradiation; 2) to study the decomposition kinetics of cefaclor; and 3) to simulate radiolytic decomposition of cefaclor with experimentally measured kinetic parameters