Emerging contaminants have been detected in the water environment, since they pose a serious threat to human health as well as environmental ecosystems. Among them, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, pesticides and several industrial compounds are discharged into the environment; conventional water treatments are not able to remove them efficiently, hence new treatment processes have to be investigated and developed in order to properly manage this hazard. For most emerging contaminants their occurrence and ecotoxicological data are still not available, and it is still difficult to foresee their fate in the environment. It must be considered as well that analytical methods for their determination are still going through development, their occurrence being at very low concentrations. According to the proved low efficiency of conventional biological processes for these compounds removal, the adoption of advanced oxidation processes in the tertiary treatment section of existing wastewater treatment plants can significantly contribute to this reduction. The present work deals with ultrasonic based Advanced Oxidation Processes such as sonolysis, and its combination with different processes as photolysis, photocatalysis and Fenton-like reactions to achieve chemical degradation and mineralization of these dangerous compounds.

Removal of pharmaceuticals by sonolysis

SCANNAPIECO, DAVIDE;NADDEO, VINCENZO;BELGIORNO, Vincenzo
2012-01-01

Abstract

Emerging contaminants have been detected in the water environment, since they pose a serious threat to human health as well as environmental ecosystems. Among them, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, pesticides and several industrial compounds are discharged into the environment; conventional water treatments are not able to remove them efficiently, hence new treatment processes have to be investigated and developed in order to properly manage this hazard. For most emerging contaminants their occurrence and ecotoxicological data are still not available, and it is still difficult to foresee their fate in the environment. It must be considered as well that analytical methods for their determination are still going through development, their occurrence being at very low concentrations. According to the proved low efficiency of conventional biological processes for these compounds removal, the adoption of advanced oxidation processes in the tertiary treatment section of existing wastewater treatment plants can significantly contribute to this reduction. The present work deals with ultrasonic based Advanced Oxidation Processes such as sonolysis, and its combination with different processes as photolysis, photocatalysis and Fenton-like reactions to achieve chemical degradation and mineralization of these dangerous compounds.
2012
9781471076060
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11386/3879361
 Attenzione

Attenzione! I dati visualizzati non sono stati sottoposti a validazione da parte dell'ateneo

Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 0
social impact