Pre-treatment of real pharmaceutical wastewater by heterogeneous Fenton and persulfate oxidation processes

This study compares the pre-oxidation of pharmaceutical wastewater by hydroxyl radical based advanced oxidation (HR-AOP) and a sulfate radical based advanced oxidation process (SR-AOP). The heterogeneous Fenton process is chosen as a model HR-AOP and persulfate (PS) activation as a model SR-AOP. The pre-treatment ef-ficacy of both processes in terms of TOC, and COD removals using Fe3O4-rGO catalyst were considered. Under the investigated experimental conditions, both processes yielded fluctuating COD values with time. The heteroge-neous Fenton process discovered to be the most efficient to remove 68.7% TOC in 180 min of treatment, when Fe3O4-rGO: H2O2 = 300 mg L-1:150 mM H2O2 was used at pH 3. Notably, the heterogeneous Fenton system was not considerably inhibited at the natural pH of pharmaceutical wastewater (6.75), as the process successfully removed 64.6% TOC. On the other hand, in persulfate activation studies, Fe3O4-rGO: PS = 400 mg L-1: 5 mM was the ideal condition for removing 59.5% TOC in 180 min at pH 3. Whereas the natural pH condition significantly inhibited the TOC removal, as only 20.8% TOC removal was feasible. The wastewater characteri-sation before and after Fenton treatment reveals that Fenton oxidation leads to an increase in inorganics (chlorides: 160 +/- 15 mg L-1, nitrates: 63.14 +/- 3.08 mg L-1, sulfates: 266.31 +/- 31.39 mg L-1) necessitating an additional treatment step to reduce COD and inorganics further.

Automated summary

This study compares the pre-oxidation of pharmaceutical wastewater using hydroxyl radical and sulfate radical based advanced oxidation processes. The heterogeneous Fenton process shows the highest efficiency in TOC removal, while persulfate activation requires an additional treatment step to reduce COD and inorganics.