Removal of Cefixime from Water Using Rice Starch by Response Surface Methodology

BACKGROUND: Remaining pharmaceutical compounds cause environmental pollution. Therefore, refining these compounds has become a major challenge. In this study, the function of eliminating Cefixime (CFX) using rice starch was evaluated under controlled conditions. METHODS: Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used to design, analyze, and optimize experiments, and the interaction between four variables including pH (3–9), rice starch dose (0–300 mg/L), CFX initial concentration (0–16 mg/L) and time (20–120 min) was investigated on CFX removal. RESULTS: The optimum pH, starch dose, initial concentration and time were 4.5, 225 mg/L, 7.9 mg/L and 95 min, respectively. The maximum efficiency of CFX removal was 70.22%. According to RSM, this study follows a quadratic model (R(2)=0.954). CONCLUSION: Rice starch has been successful in removing CFX from the aqueous solution. Therefore, it is recommended to utilize this process to remove CFX from aqueous solutions.