Enhanced reductive removal of ciprofloxacin in pharmaceutical wastewater using biogenic palladium nanoparticles by bubbling H2

To treat waste with waste and efficiently remove the organic pollutant, waste palladiums(ii) were adsorbed and reduced on microorganism surface to catalyze the reductive removal of ciprofloxacin in pharmaceutical wastewater. By optimizing conditions such as pH and temperature, the amount of biogenic palladium adsorbed and reduced on E. coli reached 139.48 mg g⁻¹ (Pd/microorganisms). Moreover, most of the Pd(ii) was reduced to nanometer-sized Pd(0) as characterized by TEM and SEM with EDXA. Using the obtained biogenic palladium, the reductive removal of ciprofloxacin is up to 87.70% at 25 °C, 3.03 folds of that achieved in the absence of H₂. The results show that waste E. coli microorganisms can efficiently adsorb and remove waste Pd(ii) and produce Bio-Pd nanoparticle catalysts in the presence of H₂. This biogenic palladium presents high catalytic activity and great advantages in the reductive degradation of ciprofloxacin. Our method can also be applied to other waste metal ions to prepare the biogenic metals, facilitate their recovery and reuse in degrading organic pollutants in wastewater to achieve “treating waste using waste”.

A solution has been successfully introduced to three key challenges from the wastewater containing waste microorganisms, metal and ciprofloxacin, respectively.