The presence of fluoroquinolone antibiotics in the aquatic environment causes serious environmental concerns due to their toxicity and ability to stimulate the development of antibiotic resistance. In this work, a combined approach to water purification is studied, combining hydrodynamic cavitation and plasma discharge for the degradation of enrofloxacin in aqueous solutions. The effect of the power of electrical pulses (1.5 and 3.0 kW) and the number of treatment cycles (1-2) at initial antibiotic concentrations of 10 and 100 mg/l is estimated. With a lower power and two treatment cycles, the degradation degree of the antibiotic reached 69.2%. Additionally, a prolonged treatment effect is revealed due to the oxidation of intermediate decomposition products by reactive oxygen forms generated in the system. The most pronounced effect is observed at enrofloxacin concentrations of 10 mg/l. The results obtained confirm the high efficiency and practical potential of this hybrid technology to remove antibiotics in water treatment systems.
Ksenofontova et al. (Wed,) studied this question.