Determination of Effective Parameters on Removal of Organic Materials from Pharmaceutical Industry Wastewater by Advanced Oxidation Process (H2O2/UV)

Background & Aims of the Study: Pharmaceutical wastewater is one of the major complexand toxic industrial effluents that contain little or no biodegradable organic matters.Materials & Methods: In this study, H2O2/UV base advance oxidation process (AOP) wasused to remove organic materials from pharmaceutical industry effluent. Experiments wereconducted for the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal using medium pressuremercury vapor UV lamp coupled with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2/UV).Results: Results indicated that the efficiency of COD removal depends on theconcentration of initial H2O2, oxidation time and pH as well. The efficiency of CODremoval in low H2O2 concentration was very low even in coupled with UV light, which canbe attributed to the low hydroxyl radicals (•OH) generation. In high concentration of H2O2(500 mg/L) and optimum pH (pH=4), 87.496% of removal efficiency could be achievedduring 70 minutes of oxidation time.Conclusions: For high concentration of H2O2 (500 mg/l) in pH 3 and 7, the maximumCOD removal efficiency was 28.5% and 15.2% respectively, indicating significant roles ofpH and H2O2 concentration in oxidation efficiency of H2O2/UV process in removing theCOD.

Keywords:

Advanced oxidationprocess , COD removal , pharmaceutical industryeffluent , Iran