Integrated Advanced Oxidation Process for the Treatment of Pharmaceutical Effluent.

Increased exploitation of water resources by the industries has attained a level of saturation denoting the complete exploitation of water in the near future. The organic contaminants in the pharmaceutical effluent remain partially degraded at the end of conventional wastewater treatment technologies thereby posing a challenge. Electrochemical Oxidation and UV Oxidation processes have proven to be effective in treating these type of contaminants in the pharmaceutical effluents. This study focuses on the integration of Electrochemical and UV Oxidation in the presence of Fenton's reagent for the effective treatment of pharmaceutical contaminants. It has been observed that the maximum reduction (>90%) of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Total Organic Carbon (TOC) was achieved during the combination of Electrochemical and UV Oxidation in the presence of 500 mg L-1 Fenton's reagent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]