Absorbtion of Sulfamethoxazole an Organic Pollutant By: Juan Martinez

 Raised in Texas  Pearsall High School  College Credit  Summer Prep  Track  Basketball  Texas A&M University Kingsville  Basketball  Track  AAEE Background

 The summer pre freshmen engineering program (PREP) molded my brain and in my 4 th year the focus of the program was water management and treatment.  PREP took the 4 th year students on a tour to San Antonio Water Systems (SAWS) we saw the water management and treatment systems. Motivation

 The research objective was to remove pharmaceuticals from waste water and storm water.  The removal of pharmaceuticals would protect fish populations and prevent undetermined long term health effects on humans Objective

Need for a low-cost sorbent  Wastewater emerging contaminants  Pharmaceuticals and personal care products  Indirect water reuse  Improve drinking water source quality  Remove natural organic matter (NOM)  DBP precursors Increasing loads of synthetic organics, such as pesticides in developing countries

 So there is a need for removal but there is still yet a demand to remove these compounds  Sulfamethoxazole was used in the study  It is used to treat urinary tract infections  Removal of compounds by adsorption to a solid material (adsorbent)  Bio Chars can become to answer to a problem that we know about, but refuse to look at. adsorption

Important Materials  Chars  Bio solids (BS)  Forced Draft Pine (FD)  Natural Draft Pine (ND)  Powder Activated Carbon (PAC)  Eucalyptus Low Temperature (LOW)  Waters  Big Elk Meadow (BEM)  Deionized (DI)  Stormwater (SW)  Waste Water (WW)

brick beehive kiln Royal Thai Forestry Department Wood Energy Research Centre Saraburi Province, Thailand

Procedure  Muffled Glass and Filters  500 degrees C  3 hours for Glass  2 hours for filters

Procedure  Jar tester  Initial speed 250 RPM for 1 min  Constant Speed 70 RPM  Test times  10min  30min  60min

Procedure

 4 ml of treated water  2 pumps of the cocktail set to 8ml  Cocktail  Solvent  Surfactant  Fluors or Scintillators

Results  BEM Ranking 1.PAC 2.FD 3.BS 4.ND 5.LOW  DI Ranking 1.PAC 2.FD 3.BS 4.ND 5.Low

FD and PAC

Results Waste Water

Results Storm Water

 PAC was the best performing char used but there is still data proving other options are available  The experiment has room for improvement and expansion  Future test many look at the other chars not searched here  Future test may have a mixture of chars  The field of biochar had the potential to solve the growing issue with pharmaceuticals in the water Conclusion

 Ryan B Mahoney  Kyle Shimabuku  Dr. Lupita Montoya  Dr. Scott Summers Acknowledgments