PubMed · 2026-04-20
Researchers converted antibiotic-production waste — dead bacterial biomass — into a highly efficient filter for toxic dyes in pharmaceutical wastewater. Treating the biomass with a common surfactant (SDS) doubled its cleaning power, reaching ~98% dye removal at half the dose, with AI models used to optimize conditions.
SDS-modified bacterial biomass achieved ~98% dye removal at 2 g/L, compared to 4 g/L required for unmodified biomass to reach similar efficiency.
DFT quantum chemistry calculations showed the surfactant treatment nearly doubled adsorption energy (from -1.42 to -2.87 eV), explaining the mechanistic improvement.
An artificial neural network (ANN) outperformed linear regression, decision tree, and random forest models in predicting dye removal, and was coupled with genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization to identify optimal operating conditions.