Evaluating the Effect of the Antibiotic Ampicillin on Performance of a Low-Cost Microbial Fuel Cell

Abstract

The release of untreated or partially treated pharmaceutical wastewater into water bodies has become a serious concern these days as the drugs and their intermediates present affect living forms heavily. Thus, the presented study evaluates the effect of a broad-spectrum antibiotic ampicillin drug on the performance of a technology called microbial fuel cell (MFC) which can generate electricity during wastewater treatment. In the current work, synthetic feed containing ampicillin was fed to two MFCs at different concentrations (10 and 25 mg/L). The MFC fed with 10 mg/L (MFC10) showed 25% higher voltage than the control (MFCC), whereas the reactor fed with 25 mg/L (MFC25) of ampicillin showed 10.2% lower voltage generation than the control. In terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency, MFC10 performed better than MFCC followed by MFC25. MFC10 and MFC25 showed comparable ampicillin removal efficiencies of 86% and 84%, respectively. Hence, the ampicillin concentration of 10 mg/L was found to be optimum for enhancing the performance of the MFC. For a concentration close to 25 mg/L or higher, the performance of the MFC was found to be negatively affected.