engleski

Photooxidative degradation of pharmaceuticals in water

Most of the pharmaceuticals are emerging pollutants and present potential hazard to the environment and human health. They are becoming ubiquitous in the environment due to their chemical stability, toxicity to microorganisms and general recalcitrance towards degradation. The conventional wastewater treatment plants are showing low efficiency for the removal of emerging pollutants and advanced oxidation processes have to be considered. This study deals with the advanced oxidation processes involving UV-C/H2O2 and UV-C/S2O82-, applied for the treatment of seven pharmaceuticals listed as priority substances within the EU Water Framework directive ; namely: 17-α ethynylestradiol, 17-β estradiol, azithromycin, carbamazepine, dexamethasone, erythromycin, oxytetracycline. The apparent degradation kinetic constants of each of the seven pharmaceuticals were calculated. The influence of pH and pollutant/oxidant ratio on the degradation kinetics was evaluated using the full factorial experimental design. The optimum treatment conditions were deduced by the response surface modeling. The degradation of pharmaceuticals by both investigated photooxidative processes obeyed first-order kinetics. The degradation kinetics of UV-C/H2O2 process is highly dependent on both pollutant/oxidant ratio and pH. The degradation kinetics of UV-C/S2O82- process depends mostly on the pollutant/oxidant ratio, and minor influence of pH is observed. In most cases the degradation by UV-C/S2O82- process was several times faster in comparison to UV-C/H2O2 process.

PHOTOOXIDATIVE DEGRADATION ; PHARMACEUTICALS ; WATER

Ovaj rad je izrađen u sklopu projekta „Modeliranje okolišnih aspekata napredne obrade voda za razgradnju prioritetnih onečišćivala“ Hrvatske zaklade za znanost na Fakultetu kemijskog inženjerstva i tehnologije Sveučilišta u Zagrebu.