Department of Chemical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK) Surathkal, Mangalore, Karnataka, 575025, India.
Sci Rep. 2023 Sep 5;13(1):14631. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-41705-1.
The emerging global problem of antimicrobial resistance needs immediate attention. In this regard, this work demonstrates the use of expanded polystyrene waste in the synthesis of immobilized photocatalytic films for the treatment of antibiotics as well as for bacterial disinfection. A boron-cerium codoped TiO catalyst (of specific composition: BCeTiO) was immobilized in an expanded polystyrene (EPS) film prepared from waste EPS beads. These films were studied for the degradation of ciprofloxacin (CIP) and disinfection of E. coli under sunlight. The film with a catalyst loading of 20 wt% showed a maximum degradation of 89% in 240 min with a corresponding TOC reduction of 84%. A 7.4 and 6.3 log reduction from the bacterial inactivation studies in the presence and absence of antibiotics, respectively, was obtained. The EPS film was stable after five times of reuse, and no significant chemical changes in the used film were observed from FTIR analysis. The average thickness of the prepared film was found from FESEM analysis to be 1.09 mm. These EPS films were also tested for degradation of other antibiotics, such as norfloxacin, levofloxacin and moxifloxacin. The EPS films were tested in two different reactor volumes at optimum conditions. Also, the effectiveness of BCeTiO/EPS film in real water samples indicates its potential in large-scale and real-world applications. Thus, these BCeTiO/EPS films can be effectively employed for both degradation of ciprofloxacin and the disinfection of E. coli under solar light to solve the increasing problem of antimicrobial resistance.
抗菌药物耐药性这一日益严重的全球性问题亟待解决。在这方面，本工作展示了利用废聚苯乙烯制备负载型光催化膜用于抗生素处理和细菌消毒。将硼铈共掺杂 TiO 催化剂（特定组成为 BCeTiO）固定在由废聚苯乙烯珠粒制备的膨胀聚苯乙烯（EPS）膜中。研究了这些膜在太阳光下对环丙沙星（CIP）的降解和对大肠杆菌的消毒性能。当催化剂负载量为 20wt%时，薄膜在 240min 内的最大降解率达到 89%，TOC 去除率达到 84%。在有抗生素和无抗生素存在的条件下，细菌灭活研究分别获得了 7.4 和 6.3 个对数的减少。经过五次重复使用后，EPS 膜仍保持稳定，且从傅里叶变换红外（FTIR）分析中观察到使用后的薄膜没有明显的化学变化。从场发射扫描电子显微镜（FESEM）分析可知，所制备的薄膜平均厚度为 1.09mm。还对其他抗生素，如诺氟沙星、左氧氟沙星和莫西沙星的降解进行了测试。在最佳条件下，在两种不同的反应器体积中测试了 EPS 膜。此外，BCeTiO/EPS 薄膜在实际水样中的有效性表明其在大规模和实际应用中的潜力。因此，这些 BCeTiO/EPS 薄膜可有效地用于在太阳光下同时降解环丙沙星和消毒大肠杆菌，以解决日益严重的抗菌药物耐药性问题。
