Advanced oxidative processes and membrane separation for micropollutant removal from biotreated domestic wastewater
The presence of micropollutants in sewage is already widely known, as well as the effects caused by natural and synthetic hormones. Thus, it is necessary to apply treatments to remove them from water systems, such as advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) and membrane separation processes, which can oxidize and remove high concentrations of organic compounds. This work investigated the removal of 17b estradiol (E2) 17a ethinylestradiol (EE2) and estriol (E3) from biotreated sewage. Reverse osmosis processes were conducted at three recoveries (50, 60, and 70 For E2 and EE2, the removals were affected by the recovery. The best results for RO were as follows: the E2 compound removal was 89 for 60 recovery and the EE2 compound removal was 57 for 50 recovery. The RO recovery did not impact the E3 removal. It was concluded that the interaction between the evaluated estrogens, and the membrane was the major factor for the hormone separation. The AOP treatment using H2O2/UV was carried out in two sampling campaigns. First, we evaluated the variation of UV doses (24.48, 73.44, 122.4, and 244.8 kJ m 2) with 18.8 mg L 1 of H2O2 in the reaction. EE2 showed considerable removals (around 70 In order to optimize the results, an experimental design was applied. The best result was obtained with higher UV dose (122.4 kJ m 2) and lower H2O2 concentration (4 mg L 1) achieving removal of 91 for E3 and 100 for E2 and EE2.
Environmental Science and Pollution Research