Synergistic effects on the degradation of a mixture of pharmaceutical pollutants in aqueous solution, raw sewage, and hospital wastewater using UV light-assisted Fenton process

Abstract

The widespread pharmaceutical pollutants enter the aquatic environment through wastewater, and it poses a threat to aquatic organisms and human health. Advanced oxidation process (AOPs) is one of the widely used treatment methods for the degradation of pharmaceutical pollutants by utilizing Ultraviolet light (UV), iron (Fe2+), and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). This study investigates the application of AOP (UV/Fe2+/H2O2) for the degradation kinetics of mixed pollutants (amoxicillin, acetaminophen, and ciprofloxacin), mineralization, and degradation products. The sources for these pollutants are hospitals, households, manufacturing industries, etc. The effects of degradation were evaluated by varying pH, Fe2+, H2O2, the mixed pollutants, and time respectively. The results revealed that the optimal conditions were observed at UV light 15 W, mixed pollutant 5 mg/L, Fe2+ 0.04 mM, H2O2 3 mM, and time 10 min. The maximum degradation was achieved at >99 % in the mixed pollutants with the kinetics in the order of ACET > CIP > AMX. The maximum mineralization was observed at 68 % and transformation products were identified using LC-ESI-MS. In addition, the process performance of the UV/Fe2+/H2O2 method was assessed by applying optimum conditions in real wastewater (raw sewage and hospital wastewater). The study revealed that the UV/Fe2+/H2O2 method had a high performance in the removal of multiple pollutants in real wastewater.