Abstract
The presence of ‘emerging contaminants’, i.e., chemicals yet without a regulatory status and poorly understood impact on human health and environment, in wastewater and aquatic environments is widely reported. No established technology, to date, can simultaneously and completely remove all these contaminants, even though some Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs,) have demonstrated capacity for some degradation of these compounds. High-energy, radiolytic processing of water matrices using various sources: electron beam (EB), ɣ-rays or non-thermal plasma (NTP) have shown excellent results in many applications, although these remain at the moment isolated examples and scarcely known. High-energy irradiation constitutes an additive-free process that uses short-lived, highly reactive radicals (both oxidating and reducing) generated by water radiolysis, which can instantaneously decompose organic pollutants. Several studies have demonstrated its effectiveness, as a stand-alone process or combined with others, in the rapid decomposition (up to complete mineralization) of organic compounds in pure and complex solutions, and in the removal or inactivation of microorganisms and parasites, without production of leftover residual compounds in solution. High-energy oxidation processes (a.k.a. Advanced Oxidation & Reduction Processes—AORPs) could have a primary role in future strategies addressing emerging contaminants.
Highlights
Chemical synthesis of both organic and inorganic compounds plays a paramount role in modern industrial production, as a process by which substances currently used in daily life are obtained.Its products impact everyday life directly and indirectly, creating the need for methods for their safe disposal/decomposition prior to emission to ambient media
Both electron beam (EB) and non-thermal plasma (NTP) technologies, often neglected by the mainstream water and wastewater literature [15] belong to the Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) category, since their effects are based on the in situ generation of oxidative, highly reactive radicals for the degradation of organic compounds in a solution
The facility consists of a high-power electron accelerator (1 MeV, 400 kW) operated since 2005 at irradiation doses of 1–2 kGy added to the existing industrial biological treatment plant to achieve partial organic compound degradation
Summary
Chemical synthesis of both organic and inorganic compounds plays a paramount role in modern industrial production, as a process by which substances currently used in daily life are obtained. Its products impact everyday life directly and indirectly, creating the need for methods for their safe disposal/decomposition prior to emission to ambient media. Novel organic micro-contaminants include contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), and metabolites thereof excreted after human or animal assumption. These have been recently detected in surface waters worldwide [1,2] and some are suspected endocrine disruptors (EDs), with potential, direct consequences on human health [3].
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