Pharmaceuticals, benzene, toluene and chlorobenzene removal from contaminated groundwater by combined UV/H2O2 photo-oxidation and aeration
Loading...
Date
2017
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This study was performed to test the feasibility of several decontamination methods for remediatingheavily contaminated groundwater in a real contaminated locality in the Czech Republic, where apharmaceuticals plant has been in operation for more than 80 years. The site is polluted mainly byrecalcitrant psychopharmaceuticals and monoaromatic hydrocarbons, such as benzene, toluene andchlorobenzene. For this purpose, an advanced oxidation technique employing UV radiation withhydrogen peroxide dosing was employed, in combination with simple aeration pretreatment. The resultsshowed that UV/H2O2was an efficient and necessary step for degradation of the pharmaceuticals;however, the monoaromatics were already removed during the aeration step. Characterization of theremoval mechanisms participating in the aeration revealed that volatilization, co-precipitation andbiodegradation contributed to the process. Thesefindings were supported by bacterial metabolite ana-lyses, phospholipid fatty acid analysis, qPCR of representatives of the degradative genes and detailedcharacterization of the formed precipitate using M€ossbauer spectroscopy and scanning electron micro-scopy. Further tests were carried out in a continuous arrangement directly connected to the wells alreadypresent in the locality. The results documented the feasibility of combination of the photo-reactoremploying UV/H2O2together with aeration pretreatment for 4 months, where the overall decontami-nation efficiency ranged from 72% to 99% of the pharmaceuticals. We recorded even better results for themonoaromatics decontamination except for one month, when we encountered some technical problemswith the aeration pump. This demonstrated the necessity of using the aeration step.
Description
Subject(s)
pharmaceuticals, BTEX, chlorobenzene, groundwater, UV/H202, biodegradation
Citation
ISSN
0043-1354