Abstract
Due to various potential toxicological threats to living organisms even at low concentrations, pharmaceuticals and personal care products in natural water are seen as an emerging environmental issue. The low efficiency of removal of pharmaceuticals and personal care products by conventional wastewater treatment plants calls for more efficient technology. Research on advanced oxidation processes has recently become a hot topic as it has been shown that these technologies can effectively oxidize most organic contaminants to inorganic carbon through mineralization. Among the advanced oxidation processes, the electrochemical advanced oxidation processes and, in general, electrochemical oxidation or anodic oxidation have shown good prospects at the lab-scale for the elimination of contamination caused by the presence of residual pharmaceuticals and personal care products in aqueous systems. This paper reviewed the effectiveness of electrochemical oxidation in removing pharmaceuticals and personal care products from liquid solutions, alone or in combination with other treatment processes, in the last 10 years. Reactor designs and configurations, electrode materials, operational factors (initial concentration, supporting electrolytes, current density, temperature, pH, stirring rate, electrode spacing, and fluid velocity) were also investigated.
Highlights
The concern for pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) as toxic substances in the environment and the essential to assess their environmental risks have significantly increased recently
electrochemical oxidation process (EOP) is a promising technique with different degradation rates for the removal of PPCPs from though a high concentration of caffeine was used compared to low concentration in natural water
The caffeine elimination obtained in real wastewater was found to be higher than in synthetic wastewater due to the contribution of electrogenerated oxidant species, such as hypochlorite [113], when sulfonamides and DEET removal were most efficient in the presence of municipal wastewater treatment plant (MWWTP) effluents [52,102]
Summary
The concern for pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) as toxic substances in the environment and the essential to assess their environmental risks have significantly increased recently. Pharmaceuticals are used to prevent or treat diseases on humans and animals, whereas personal care products (PCPs) are used mostly to improve the quality of daily life [2] They are considered as emerging pollutants (new products or chemicals without regulatory status) and whose effects on the environment and human health are unidentified [3]. The electrochemical oxidation process (EOP) can be described as an electrochemical technology capable of achieving oxidation of contaminants from water or wastewater, either by direct or mediated oxidation processes originating on the anode surface of the electrochemical cell. This means that these oxidative processes should not be carried out on the anode, but only on its surface. The remediation of aqueous or real wastewater was assessed, regarding many features like the configuration of the electrochemical reactor, anode and cathode characteristics, and operational parameters such as initial PPCPs concentration, supporting electrolytes, current density (j), temperature, pH, temperature, stirring rate, electrode spacing, and fluid velocity
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