Effect of UV dose on degradation of venlafaxine using UV/H 2 O 2 : perspective of augmenting UV units in wastewater treatment.

Many water and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are fitted with a UV system that provides post treatment disinfection before the water is released to receiving water. This paper presents a study on expected removal for the pharmaceutical venlafaxine (VEN) in a typical UV unit at a municipal WWTP with analysis of removal rates of an advanced oxidation process using UV irradiation with injection of H ₂ O ₂ . The study is supported by bench scale degradation experiments on VEN. Results demonstrated that UV can completely degrade VEN, but the addition of H ₂ O ₂ increased pseudo first order rate constant by up to 2.5 times. Extrapolations of the lab data indicated that removal rates of VEN at the UV disinfection unit of a typical municipal WWTP are approximately 0.4% at standard operating conditions. With the addition of 10 mg/L of H ₂ O ₂ , degradation of VEN can be increased by ten times over existing UV treatment. By studying the impact of adjusting parameters such as UV intensity, UV dosage, and H ₂ O ₂ dosage, a framework is set to allow researchers and engineers to move forward with developing UV/H ₂ O ₂ systems that meet their future design needs for pharmaceutical removal.