Treatment of PPCPs and disinfection by-product formation in drinking water through advanced oxidation processes: Comparison of UV, UV/Chlorine, and UV/H2O2

The presence of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) in water is concerning because of their potential threat to ecosystems and human health. Studies have indicated that these emerging contaminants cannot be effectively removed through conventional water treatment. In this study, the efficacy of various treatments-chlorination, ultraviolet (UV), UV/Chlorine, and UV/H2O2 processes-in PPCP removal from water was compared. The effects of reaction time, oxidant concentration, pH, and water matrix and the generation of disinfection by-products (DBPs) were also assessed. The removal of PPCPs was discovered to be superior when the concentration of oxidants was higher. In addition, pH affected the reactivity of chlorine with some of the investigated chemicals. Chorine itself plays a minor role in the UV/Chlorine process because it serves as a reactant for the generation of free radicals rather than oxidants. Matrix had a weak effect on the removal of PPCPs in the various treatment processes (mostly within 10%). UV could not effectively remove acetylsalicylic acid, ibuprofen, benzophenone, oxybenzone, caffeine, N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide, or most estrogens. When chlorine or hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was used with UV, the efficiency of removal of all selected PPCPs was greatly improved (>56.5% for UV/Chlorine and >27.6% for UV/H2O2) within 5 min. Although the PPCP removal efficiency of UV/Chlorine was higher than that of UV/H2O2, UV/H2O2 resulted in smaller amounts of DBP formation in the treated water. By contrast, UV/Chlorine resulted in higher concentrations of trihalomethanes (21.6%), haloacetonitriles (29.4%), and haloketones (147.2%).

Automated summary

The study found that a higher concentration of oxidants resulted in better removal of PPCPs. The efficiency of removal of selected PPCPs was greatly improved when chlorine or hydrogen peroxide was used in combination with UV. While UV/Chlorine had higher PPCP removal efficiency than UV/H2O2, the latter resulted in smaller amounts of disinfection by-products in treated water.