Cefadroxil Separation from Pharmaceutical Effluent Using Nanofiltration to Prevent the Development of Antibiotic Resistance in Pathogens

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Recent studies have indicated that antibiotics are among the primary environmental water contaminants, posing a severe threat to all living things. Even minute amounts of antibiotics in the wastewater stream are sufficient to develop antibiotic resistance in pathogens. The current work examines the efficiency of the nanofiltration (NF) process for removing cefadroxil antibiotics. Experiments were performed on a lab‐scale setup containing a polyamide composite NF membrane with varying operating conditions. Results showed that high transmembrane pressure, high feed flow rate, and low feed concentration were suitable operating conditions for maximizing water flux and cefadroxil rejections. The highest water flux was found at feed pH 6, while the highest cefadroxil rejection was found at feed pH 2. Further, results confirm that feed pH significantly affects the separation due to variations in the interaction between solute ions and the membrane surface. This study proves that the NF membrane with a molecular weight cutoff of 150 Da could successfully remove cefadroxil antibiotics with a maximum rejection of up to 96.5%.