The efficiency of UV/S2O82- and UV/ ZnO photo-oxidation process for the removal of Acetominophen from aqueous solution

Subject Areas : Chemistry

farham aminsharei ¹ , hossein abbastabar ² , Ali Hassanzadeh-Tabrizi ³ , sara ataei ⁴

1 - Department of Safety, Health and Environment, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran
2 - Department of Chemistry, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran
3 - Advanced Materials Research Center, Department of Materials Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran.
4 - Department of Safety, Health and Environment, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran

Received: 2023-08-01 Accepted : 2024-01-30 Published : 2024-12-12

Keywords: Pharmaceutical, Persulfate, Photodegradation, Wastewater,

Abstract :

These days, water has a special importance in human life, and access to safe drinking water is essential to maintaining human health. The presence of residual pharmaceutical compounds as emerging contaminants (ECs) in wastewater deteriorate aquatic life and water quality due to the lack of effective treatment processes to remove them. This paper deals the degradation and demineralization of acetaminophen (ACT) from its aqueous solution under UV-Vis irradiation using ZnO (UV/ZnO) and K2S2O8 (UV/PS). Detailed batch tests were evaluated to investigate the effect of different variables such as pH, catalyst dose, reaction time, and drug concentration and mineralization rate. The obtained results showed the higher performance of the UV/PS process and the UV/ZnO at acidic and natural conditions, respectively. The UV / PS process is able to degrade 20 mg/L of acetaminophen in 50 minutes, while the UV/ZnO process breaks down this amount of acetaminophen in 100 minutes. This work can be developed for the removal of ECs related to the pharmaceutical group from contaminated water