Abstract
In order to remediate the very poor mineralization of paracetamol in water, even when well degraded by using a Non-Thermal Plasma (NTP) process at a very low dissipated power, a plasma-catalyst coupling process was tested and investigated. A homemade glass fiber supported Fe3+ catalyst was immersed in the liquid to be treated in a Dielectric Barrier Discharge plasma reactor. The plasma-catalysis process, at the same low dissipated power, achieved a mineralization rate of 54% with a full conversion rate of paracetamol at 25 mg L−1 in initial concentration after 60 min treatment, thanks to Fenton-like effects. The synergetic effects of the plasma-catalysis coupling process also improved the Energy Yield by a factor of two. The catalyst before and after use for treatment was characterized by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller and Thermogravimetric analysis. High-Performance Liquid Chromatography was used to measure the concentration of treated solution and to investigate the intermediates. Two of them, namely 1,4-hydroquinone and 1,4-benzoquinone, were formally identified. Some intermediates are presented in this paper as a function of treatment time and their UV absorbance spectra. NTP processes with and without catalyst coupling were compared in terms of acidity, conductivity, and nitrate concentrations in the treated solution.
Highlights
Significant volumes of water containing pharmaceutical residues are released into the environment, given the number of existing health care establishments or pharmaceutical industries.Pharmaceutical residues in surface waters have negative impacts on planktonic species [1] and some studies indicate that surface water pharmaceutical levels can lead to potential environmental concerns for aquatic ecosystems [2].To remove pharmaceutical residues from water, various Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) have been studied for many years, using electrochemical methods [3], ozonation [4], UV-light in photocatalytic oxidation [5], Fenton and photo Fenton-like processes [6]
AOP techniques proceed via reactive oxygen species such as ozone [7], hydrogen peroxide [8], or short-lived species such as hydroxyl radicals or atomic oxygen [9]
The present study focused on enhancing the mineralization rate for paracetamol degradation in water using a coupled plasma-catalysis process
Summary
Significant volumes of water containing pharmaceutical residues are released into the environment, given the number of existing health care establishments or pharmaceutical industries. The best energy yield of 12 g (kWh)−1 was obtained for a gas mixture of air-Ar. Their paper showed that carboxylic acids and aromatic compounds are the main degradation products of paracetamol in liquid and very low TOC removal rate was obtained, i.e., a very weak mineralization. When performing the reaction under oxidative conditions, it was reported that the Fenton process is efficient for the mineralization of a wide range of organic compounds, as the presence of oxygen enhances the degradation of the pharmaceutical residues thanks to the occurrence of auto-oxidation initiated by HO radicals [20]. The present study focused on enhancing the mineralization rate for paracetamol degradation in water using a coupled plasma-catalysis process. The treatment was performed with an applied square alternative High Voltage (HV) of
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