Experimental Study to Optimize the Treatment Efficacy of Pharmaceutical Effluents by Combining Electron Beam Irradiation

Here, we report our first step towards tackling this issue at the roots by irradiating the pharmaceutical effluents from a stages of their existing treatment plant with an Electron Beam (EB) with doses varying from 25 kGy to 200 kGy. We have used a normal conducting pulsed wave linear accelerator developed by SAMEER. It produced a pencil beam of electrons of energy 6 MeV with an average current of 16 micro-Ampere. To ensure optimum dose delivery, Fluka-Flair Simulations have been used. We have successfully demonstrated that electron beam irradiation along with the use of conventional techniques like coagulation after the irradiation can further increase the efficacy of the process with a final reduction in Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) to be as large as 65% in some of the cases.
Proceedings of the 31st International Linear Accelerator Conference, LINAC2022, Liverpool, UK