The influence of the water matrix on the performance of sulfamethoxazole removal by catalytic wet peroxide oxidation
Conference Paper
Overview
Research
View All
Overview
abstract
Laboratory grade purified ultrapure water (UP) is an attractive matrix to evaluate the performance of
advanced water treatment technologies, mainly due to its easy manipulation, simplicity and
reproducibility of the experimental results. However, antimicrobial agents like sulfamethoxazole (SMX)
are typically found in much more complex matrices throughout the urban water cycle, such as in raw
and in conventionally treated urban wastewater (UWW) [1] or drinking water (DW) [2], or in surface water
and groundwater [3]. Bearing this in mind, the influence of the water matrix on the performance of SMX
removal by catalytic wet peroxide oxidation (CWPO) – an advanced oxidation process typically operated
at atmospheric pressure and mild temperature, was assessed in this work using secondary treated
UWW and DW spiked with SMX (500 μg L-1). Synthetic water (SW) containing humic acid (HA; 40 mg
L-1), bicarbonate (500 mg L-1), sulphate (60 mg L-1) and chloride (200 mg L-1), was also tested in order
to mimic the presence of the typical constituents of conventionally treated UWW and DW. As observed
in Fig. 1a, the performance of CWPO decreases with the increasing complexity of the water matrix. This
phenomenon was ascribed to the scavenging effect promoted by the different anions considered, as
well as to the negative impact of dissolved organic matter typically found in secondary treated UWW, as
simulated by the presence of HA (cf. Fig. 1b).
