Advanced Electrochemical Oxidation Processes in the Treatment of Pharmaceutical Containing Water and Wastewater: a Review

This review addresses recent developments and challenges about electrochemical advanced oxidation processes (EAOPs) to favor market prospecting for EAO technology. The presence of contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) in the environment (wastewater, groundwater, surface water, tap water etc.), especially the pharmaceutical compounds, has been highlighted as a worldwide environmental problem, mainly due to their difficult elimination by conventional wastewater and water treatment processes. Aiming to solve the lower removal of a wide spectrum of CEC by conventional processes, the development of (EAOPs) has grown in recent decades, mainly because they are considered compact, scalable and automatable, and chemical-free. However, most studies were carried out using single contaminant in lab-scale which does not represent the reality of treatment systems. In this scenario, the treatment of complex matrices, multi-contaminants, lower contaminant concentration, energy consumption, fouling, and scaling still remain serious obstacles and challenges in the wider spread of the EAOPs. Therefore, considerable research and development efforts should include a deeper discussion on the treatment of complex water matrices, reactor design, hybrid processes, and what is necessary for enhanced process performance and to the scale up.