Experimental Study on the Degradation of Tetracycline by Air to Dielectric Barrier Discharge

Abstract

Tetracycline antibiotics (TCs) are one of the most widely used antibiotics in recent years, which are chemically very stable and the wastewater containing tetracycline is highly toxic and difficult to degrade. In this paper, the effect of air as the background gas on the degradation of tetracyclines was investigated based on Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) technology. The results show that DBD plasma can degrade tetracycline at higher gas flow rate, higher input power and lower liquid flow rate; the highest degradation rate of tetracycline reached 33.9% under the optimal reaction conditions of 1000 mL/min gas flow rate, 90 W input power and 100 mL/min liquid flow rate; At this time, the voltage and current discharge waveforms are uniform sine waves, with a peak discharge voltage of about 16 kV and a current amplitude of 0.55 mA. This study provides a new solution idea for the treatment of TCs wastewater.