The goal of this paper was to develop a modified photo-Fenton treatment able to degrade micro pollutants in municipal wastewater treatment plant (MWTP) effluents at a neutral pH with minimal iron and H(2)O(2) concentrations. Complexation of Fe by ethylenediamine-N,N'-disuccinic acid (EDDS) leads to stabilization and solubilization of Fe at natural pH. Photo-Fenton experiments were performed in a pilot compound parabolic collector (CPC) solar plant. Samples were treated with solid phase extraction (SPE) and analyzed by HPLC-Qtrap-MS. The rapid degradation of contaminants within the first minutes of illumination and the low detrimental impact on degradation of bicarbonates present in the water suggested that radical species other than HO(•) are responsible for the efficiency of such photo-Fenton process. Disinfection of MWTP effluents by the same process showed promising results, although disinfection was not complete.
This work focuses on the treatment of real effluents from a municipal wastewater treatment plant (RE) with solar photo-Fenton (5 mg and 20 mg L(-1) Fe, pH approximately 3 and 50 mg L(-1) initial H(2)O(2) concentration) at pilot plant scale. In some experiments RE was spiked with 15 different (acetaminophen, antipyrine, atrazine, caffeine, carbamazepine, diclofenac, flumequine, hydroxybiphenyl, ibuprofen, isoproturon, ketorolac, ofloxacin, progesterone, sulfamethoxazole, and triclosan) emerging contaminants (ECs) at 100 and 5 microg L(-1) each which were added directly into RE prior to treatment. All experiments showed successful degradation of ECs in real effluents from different municipal wastewater treatment plants at low iron concentration (5 mg L(-1)). Although the most degradation took place during the Fenton process, photo-Fenton was necessary to degrade all ECs below their limit of detection (LOD). In the case of the RE containing 52 ECs (determined by HPLC-QTRAP-MS), four of them could not be degraded to their LOD and were still present, although at extremely low concentrations (nicotine 47 ng L(-1), cotinine 11 ng L(-1), chlorfenvinphos 99 ng L(-1), and caffeine 8 ng L(-1)). ECs were easily degraded by (*)OH without substantial competition with the organic content of the RE.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.