Degradation of ibuprofen in aqueous solution by electro-Fenton oxidation process

Significant attention has been drawn to pharmaceuticals often found in wastewater and drinking water because they are biologically stable and may survive and remain harmful. As a consequence, pharmaceutical contaminants pose a current and future threats to health and the environment. Ibuprofen, is an anti-inflammatory drug, was used as a symbolic pollutant in this study. Electrochemical advanced oxidation process (EAOP) based on the Fenton reaction has been implemented to degrade Ibuprofen to treat this emerging pollutant. It has been executed in a batch reactor with mixed metal oxide (Ti- RuO2/IrO2) anode and activated carbon felt cathode. This process uses the high reactivity of hydroxyl radicals to oxidize organics to harmless products gradually. The influence of four essential parameters of the process: current density (I) (100-500 mA), pH (2-6), Fe(II) (C) (0.1-1 mM), and time (t) (10-90 min) on the efficiency of COD removal has been studied. In order to design the experiment, create a full quadratic model, evaluate the effect of process parameters and optimize the process, Response Surface Methodology (RSM) with central composite design (CCD) was carried out. Optimization predicts that experiment at CFe(II)=0. 67 mM, pH=4.10, t=63.33min, and I=217.17 mA could achieve maximum efficiency of COD removal of 83.88 %. A validation experiment was carried out at these operating conditions, and the result was close to the predicted values.