Low-Frequency Capacitive Sensing for Environmental Monitoring of Water Pollution with Residual Antibiotics

The intensive use of antibiotics for human treatment and disease prevention in livestock and agriculture has led to the global threat of antibiotic resistance. To prevent the contamination of antibiotic residues through wastewater treatment plants, this paper assesses the feasibility of using UV-Vis spectrophotometer and low-frequency impedance analysis for detecting specific antibiotics in water. The change in the optical absorbance of the solutions was recorded with the spectrophotometer and the change in the values of capacitance was recorded using impedance analyser. In all cases these were dependent on the type of antibiotic and its concentration in water. The efficiency of the sensing methods in detecting different antibiotics at different concentrations is analyzed throughout the paper.