Assessment of Advanced Photocatalytic Oxidation process for Micropollutant Elimination in Municipal and Industrial Waste Water Treatment Plants

Pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides and other chemicals used for domestic purpose or industrial or agro-food production are continuously discharged into wastewater and lead to global contamination of the aquatic environment all over Europe [1]. Removal during conventional wastewater treatment is unsatisfactory knowing that only 20 to 50% of micropollutants are removed in current waste water treatment plants [2].
This study is part of a European project called AOPTi for Advanced Oxidation Processes and Ti for TiO2 photocatalyst. The objective of this project is to develop and validate an innovative technology to ensure efficient elimination of different types of micropollutants and toxic effects in waste water. The process is a tertiary treatment process, which can be easily integrated into municipal and industrial WWTPs. It is an economical physico-chemical treatment step after the conventional biological treatment [3]. The process is based on oxidation by ozone and a subsequent photocatalytic treatment. The technology is developed for companies involved in the water purification sector and for companies with toxic effluents loaded with micropollutants. Process parameters have to be determined depending on the type of waste water in order to lead to almost total degradation of all micropollutants and to ensure absence of toxicity of the resulting water.