Water remediation from emerging pollutants by AOPs. The Electron beam treatment of a multicomponent system.

The awareness is growing nowadays that no single method can solve the water pollution issue alone. Indeed the association of physical-mechanical methods and biodigestion can be advantageously associated with physical-chemical processes to destroy organic substances, otherwise not degradable. Various Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) have in fact demonstrated their ability to achieve the mineralisation of high bioresistant organic compounds in atmospheric conditions at room temperature. Think for example of the effective degradation of chlorophenols and other toxic pollutants such as dioxins, polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs), and benzofurans obtained by UV and Electron beam (EB) treatments [1,2]. As the effectiveness of AOPs is due to the initiation of radical processes through the prime oxidative action of the hydroxyl radical, various AOPs are under rapid development. They exploit the effect of different kinds of energy absorbed by water, spanning from Vacuum-UV to the solar region , to microwaves ,to ultrasound waves, and plasma discharge techniques, as well as high energy electrons. Also, they can be hybridized together to obtain synergistic effects. These attempts have the common goal to offer a choice of physical-chemical remediation processes wide enough to suit any treatment scale. Typically, low energy sources can be employed to treat domestic liquid wastes, whereas energetic electrons are suitable for industrial and municipal wastewater. Some of these methods are under examination in our Institute [3] aiming to show the feasibility of their implementation in the remediation plants of domestic and industrial/municipal effluents. As part of this project, the present paper deals with the remediation of water polluted by relatively poor biodegradable pharmaceuticals and personal care products. Specifically here we exploit the ability of the EB method to achieve their mineralization in atmospheric conditions at room temperature. Also we aim to i) explore and compare the performances of the EB system in oxidizing as well as simultaneously oxidative/reductive conditions, and ii) study the effect of the OH production rate on TOC reduction.