Oxidative degradation study on antimicrobial agent ciprofloxacin by electro-fenton process: Kinetics and oxidation products

•Degradation/mineralization of ciprofloxacin was investigated by electro-Fenton.•Oxidation of ciprofloxacin by OH follows a pseudo-first order reaction kinetics.•A quasi-complete mineralization (>94%) rate was obtained at 6h treatment.•A mineralization pathway is suggested based on identification of reaction intermediates. Oxidative degradation of the antimicrobial agent ciprofloxacin hydrochloride (CIP) has been investigated using electro-Fenton (EF) treatment with a constant current in the range 60–500mA. The process generates highly oxidant species OH in situ via electrochemically monitored Fenton reaction. The EF experiments were performed using cells with a carbon felt cathode and Pt anode. Effect of applied current and catalyst concentration on the kinetics of oxidative degradation and mineralization efficiency have been investigated. Degradation of CIP followed pseudo-first order reaction kinetics. The rate constant of the oxidation of CIP by OH has been determined to be (1.01±0.14) × 1010 M−1 s−1 by using competitive kinetics method. An optimum current of 400mA and a catalyst concentration of Fe2+ at 0.1mM are found to be optimal for an effective degradation of CIP under our operating conditions. A remarkably high degree of mineralization (>94%) was obtained at 6h of treatment under these conditions. A number of stable intermediate products have been identified using HPLC and LC-MS/MS analyses. Based on the identified reaction intermediates, a plausible reaction pathway was proposed for the mineralization process. The high degree of mineralization obtained in this work highlights the potential application of EF process in the efficient removal of fluoroquinolone based drugs in aqueous medium.