A comparative study on ozone, hydrogen peroxide and UV based advanced oxidation processes for efficient removal of diethyl phthalate in water

[Display omitted] •Several AOPs were compared for DEP removal in water.•Oxidation by OH was the prevailing pathway for DEP degradation.•Ozone-based AOPs were the most effective for DEP removal.•O3/Al2O3 gave the highest DEP removal.•Reaction products and their kinetics were identified by LC/MS/MS. Several Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) including O3/H2O2, O3/TiO2, O3/activated carbon (AC), O3/Al2O3, O3/Fe2+/H2O2 and UV/TiO2 have been investigated and compared for the removal of diethyl phthalate (DEP), an endocrine disrupting compound, in aqueous solutions. Hydroxyl radicals were the main species responsible for DEP degradation and this was supported by computational chemistry calculation, scavenger experiments, and LC/MS/MS analysis. The change of the abundance of reaction products over time was determined. Organic acids as well as anhydride and hydroxylated products were found to accumulate in solution even after long reaction time (2 h). Careful choice of the operating parameters (pH, ozone concentration and catalyst dosage) was crucial to achieve enhanced performance of the combined processes above what each oxidant and catalyst can achieve alone. O3/AC process was found to reduce the oxidation efficiency of O3 at high ozone concentrations. Heterogeneous catalytic ozonation with Al2O3 was the most effective process for DEP removal (∼100% removal in about 15 min) and based on pseudo-first-order kinetics at pH7, the studied oxidation processes followed the order: O3/Al2O3(0.093 min−1)>O3/H2O2/Fe2+(0.076 min−1)>O3/AC(0.069 min−1)>O3/H2O2(0.053 min−1)>O3/TiO2(0.050 min−1)> O3 alone (0.039 min−1)>UV/TiO2(0.009 min−1).