Degradation of Pharmaceuticals from Simulated and Real Hospital Wastewater applying Conventionnal Fenton Process: Optimization conditions and application

Abstract

This study concerns the treatment of simulated and real hospital wastewater enriched in amoxicillin (AMX), ceftriaxone (CTX) and telebrix (TLX) by the Fenton process. The initial concentration of the compound, the molar ratio [H2O2]/[Fe2+]=k and the pH were used to determine the optimal conditions on the simulated wastewater. Then comes the study of the effects of inorganic ions, temperature and degradation of CTX and TLX. Chemical oxygen requirements (COD) and amoxicillin concentrations were used to monitor the experiments. The results obtained indicate that the optimum degradation (78.86%) is obtained at 0.5mM from the initial concentration, k=2 and pH=3. For instance, it has been found that the Fenton process does not degrade pharmaceuticals with the same efficacy. Furthermore, inorganic ions and high temperature reduce the performance of conventional Fenton. Moreover, this process hardly degrades (37.05%) real hospital wastewater, which contain inorganic ions in terms of COD removal. However, the successive addition of Fenton reagents provides a better COD removal rate for the treatment of this actual wastewater (88.96%). On the other hand, alternatives such as increasing the molar ratio as well as decreasing the quantities of Fenton reagents while keeping k constant did not have a positive effect on the removal rate of the actual wastewater. The formation of intermediate compounds was shown by comparison of the evolution of the concentration of the compound and the COD.