Textile industry has an expressive scenario in the world economy and Brazil is the 5th in the textile production. By 2015, Brazilian textile production represented US $ 39.3 billion, accounting for more than 1.8 million tons of fabric. The effluents from textile industry are highlighted by quantity of wastewater discharged and variety of substances (dyes, bleaching agents, surfactants, salts, acids, among others). Such compounds often prove to be toxic to aquatic biota. This present study aims to assess toxicity of whole effluents, before and after irradiation (by electron beam accelerator, EBI). In addition, the reduction of the effluent color after irradiation is also very important. Daphnia similis and Vibrio fischeri were the biological systems applied for toxicity evaluations.  Previous results demonstrated the surfactant as the main toxic compound, in the untreated and irradiated forms, EC 50 = 0.44 ppm ± 0.02 (untreated); EC 50 = 0.46 % ± 0.07 (irradiated). The irradiation was effective for reducing color of the effluent, starting from 0.5 kGy. EB irradiation may be proposed as an alternative treatment for the final effluent from textile processing, mainly for reuse purposes.

Significant evidence is available in the literature justifying the search for treatment technologies or process combinations to improve the decomposition of dozens of pharmaceuticals in wastewater. Conventional processing techniques are insufficient in removal of the pharmaceuticals, for having resistant waste and low biodegradability. Electron beam irradiation (EBI) may play an important role in this context, and relatively low doses have been reported for such purposes. The objective of this study was to apply the process of irradiation with electron beam in order to reduce the toxic effects of fluoxetine, propranolol, and a binary mixture of these pharmaceuticals in aqueous solution. Ecotoxicological tests conducted in two model organisms, Daphnia similis microcrustacean, and Vibrio fischeri bacterium. It was observed that D. similis was more sensitive to the pharmaceuticals and binary mixture, when compared to V. fischeri. When EBI was applied, all doses showed significant reduction of toxicity for D. similis, and the opposite for V. fischeri, when only 5.0 kGy showed a significant reduced of toxicity for the pharmaceuticals and binary mixture. 5.0 kGy was the best removal efficiency for toxicity, approximately 80% for D. similis and 20% for V. fischeri.