Removal of Cefixime from Water Using Rice Starch by Response Surface Methodology

Fatemeh Sadat Tabatabaei; Mahdi Asadi-Ghalhari; Rahim Aali; Fatemeh Mohammadi; Roqiyeh Mostafaloo; Rezvaneh Esmaeili; Zohreh Davarparast; Zahra Safari

Removal of Cefixime from Water Using Rice Starch by Response Surface Methodology

Avicenna J Med Biotechnol. 2020 Oct-Dec;12(4):230-235.

Authors

Fatemeh Sadat Tabatabaei¹, Mahdi Asadi-Ghalhari¹, Rahim Aali¹, Fatemeh Mohammadi¹, Roqiyeh Mostafaloo¹, Rezvaneh Esmaeili¹, Zohreh Davarparast¹, Zahra Safari¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Faculty of Health, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.

PMID: 33014314
PMCID: PMC7502163

Abstract

Background: Remaining pharmaceutical compounds cause environmental pollution. Therefore, refining these compounds has become a major challenge. In this study, the function of eliminating Cefixime (CFX) using rice starch was evaluated under controlled conditions.

Methods: Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used to design, analyze, and optimize experiments, and the interaction between four variables including pH (3-9), rice starch dose (0-300 mg/L), CFX initial concentration (0-16 mg/L) and time (20-120 min) was investigated on CFX removal.

Results: The optimum pH, starch dose, initial concentration and time were 4.5, 225 mg/L, 7.9 mg/L and 95 min, respectively. The maximum efficiency of CFX removal was 70.22%. According to RSM, this study follows a quadratic model (R²=0.954).

Conclusion: Rice starch has been successful in removing CFX from the aqueous solution. Therefore, it is recommended to utilize this process to remove CFX from aqueous solutions.

Keywords: Cefixime; Response surface methodology (RSM); Rice starch.