Degradation of fluoroquinolone antibiotics during ionizing radiation treatment and assessment of antibacterial activity, toxicity and biodegradability of the products

This work aimed at investigating the ionizing radiation induced degradation of two fluoroquinolone antibiotics: norfloxacin and ciprofloxacin. At 0.1 mmol dm−3 concentration a low dose, 2 kGy was sufficient to degrade the initial molecules. However, despite of the high removal efficiency the degrees of both the mineralization and the oxidation were low, ∼10% and ∼25%, respectively. (The difference between the results obtained in norfloxacin and...