Comparison of the advanced oxidation processes in the degradation of pharmaceuticals and pesticides in simulated urban wastewater: Principal component analysis and energy requirements

Pollutants such as pharmaceutical products and pesticides are still present in treated water. Several of these compounds are photoactive. The photodegradation of eight organic pollutants was studied using listed advanced oxidation processes: UV/H2O2, UV/persulfate, Fenton, photo-Fenton and UV/TiO2. The results show that photodegradation is most effective in the first 10 min of treatments in simulated urban wastewater collected from the local Nišava River. To identify the correlation between applied degradation processes as well as the relationship among the structure of investigated compounds and efficiency of degradation, Pearson’s correlation coefficient analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were performed. The established correlations between the applied processes, as well as the determination of the influence of the structure on the efficiency of degradation, enable a more efficient choice of the degradation procedure, especially in the case of interference. Additionally, process electrical energy consumption and treatment costs for simulated urban wastewater with different pharmaceuticals and pesticides were determined.