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Abstract:

The occurrence and fate of micropollutants (pharmaceutically active components and (PhACs) in the aquatic environment has been recognised as one of the emerging issues in environmental chemistry. A lot of these components are often not or only partially eliminated during biological wastewater treatment and are also not biodegraded in the environment. It is hence of prime importance to develop reliable treatment methods for these classes of pollutants. One class of particularly important pharmaceuticals are antibiotics. This paper studies the use of Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs)and membranes for the removal of some selected micro-pollutants in wastewater. All AOPs are characterised by their common feature of using the non-selective oxidation properties of OH*- radicals. Various studies describe their use for the treatment of wastewaters containing non-easily removable organic compounds. Various techniques are tested for their capability of removing antibiotics, including traditional AOPs like classic Fenton peroxidation (used as reference), photo-assisted Fenton (UV/Fe3+/H2O2) and ozone, and novel methods based on the oxidative properties of peroxymonosulphate (POMS). The latter is frequently used for decontamination purposes and was previously studied for its use in sludge treatment. For all methods the influence of various process parameters (dosage, catalyst concentration, temperature, …) on the destruction efficiency was tested and reaction kinetics were determined. The results show that AOPs indeed have the capability of degrading antibiotics in wastewater.