Treatment of real industrial pharmaceutical wastewater using wet peroxide oxidation

The presence of recalcitrant organic molecules with high amounts of chemical oxygen demand, low biodegradability, and lack of effective treatment for pharmaceutical wastewater result in environmental pollution. Batch wet peroxide oxidation (WPO) experiments have been performed to study the effect of temperature (150 degrees C-250 degrees C), oxidant coefficient (OC 0-3), and reaction time (20 minutes-60 minutes) on degradation efficiency of industrial pharmaceutical wastewater. Box-Behnken design (BBD) with response surface methodology was used to study the effect of independent parameters on total organic carbon (TOC) removal response. The optimum temperature, oxidant coefficient, and reaction time of the process were found to be 250 degrees C, OC 3, and 60 minutes, which resulted in TOC conversion of 57.96%. The obtained quadratic model has been able to predict the response with minimum deviation. The experimental modelling results conveyed that influence of process parameters followed the order: temperature > time > oxidant coefficient. To improve the mineralization efficiency, process parameters were changed to attain the near complete conversion (similar to 99%) of the pharmaceutical wastewater. The qualitative analysis also showed that only a few components of pharmaceuticals were present in the treated effluent.