Vinasse oxidative treatment by the combined system H2O2/artificial UV

Abstract

One of the reasons about the environment concerning is due to the growing of the sugar cane sector, which occurs significantly in Brazil. The alcohol production leads to large volumes of waste, especially the vinasse. It's produced close to 13 liters of vinasse per liter of distilled alcohol. If the vinasse gets disposed improperly it can affect the physical and chemical properties of the soil and contaminate the surface and ground water resources. There are some methods for vinsasse treatment, such as anaerobic digestion or composting, its reuse as animal feed and its use in fertigation. However, these methods are partial in the degradation of this effluent, being necessary to study more advanced techniques for the vinasse effectiveness treatment. Due to the advanced oxidation processes are considered nowadays an alternative to the destruction of the difficult degradation organic compounds, the proposed treatment to be studied is based on the advanced oxidation process (AOP) using hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) associated to ultraviolet (UV) by artificial source. The aimed results are the vinasse treatment by a relatively simple and quick process, promoting improvements in the aspects related to environment and public health. (AU)