Improvement of the treatment of cork boiling wastewater by solar photo-Fenton process

The manufacturing process of cork generate a high volume of industrial wastewater which presents a significant organic pollution and low biodegradability. Solar photo-Fenton has been investigated for the remediation of these effluents with good reductions of organic load and demonstrating to be an efficient alternative and allowing the possibility to combine with other processes. This work proposes a treatment line for the improvement of this process based on an innovative solar prototype which optimizes the solar irradiation for improving the removal rate of pollutants. Additionally, efficient and green physicochemical technologies using decantation and NaHCO3 were put into practice and evaluated. After the solar photo-Fenton process, chemical oxygen demand and total phenolic compounds decreased by 48–91 % and 45–96 %, respectively, with a relatively short illumination time. With the subsequent physicochemical treatment performed after photo-Fenton process, the minimum thresholds of reductions increase by more than 25 % with respect to the application of only photo-Fenton treatment: increase of 48 %–75 % reduction for chemical oxygen demand and 45 %–75 % removal for total phenolic compounds. Therefore, costs savings were achieved by avoiding more sophisticated treatments. [Display omitted] •Solar photo-Fenton is an efficient option to treat cork boiling wastewater.•The innovative design of the prototype greatly optimized the solar irradiance.•A green, efficient and economic further treatment complemented the depuration.•The proposed treatment line achieved high rates of pollutants removal.