Removal of micro and liquid plastic from wastewater by advanced oxidation technologies

Abstract

The treatment of domestic and industrial effluents is of paramount importance in the preservation of different aquatic ecosystems, aiming that the contaminants present in effluents are eliminated before the disposition of the treated material in the environment. Advanced oxidation processes (AOP's) are processes used in water treatment systems which associate more than one oxidative process, so that highly oxidizing species are produced and the oxidizable material of the water are oxidized until-mineralization, and thus the treated material to be disposed the environment is free or with very low levels of contaminants.Many are the components of sewage; in particular, plastics cause a lot of environmental concern. Liquid plastics and microplastics, besides having their presence evidenced in several ecosystems and trophic levels, are today considered as emerging contaminants and being able to release malicious substances during oxidation treatments. They also can act as transporters of other contaminants by means of adsorption on their surface. The chromatographic methods of analysis are the most used in chemical determination and are a powerful tool to do the analysis of micro and liquid plastics and their byproducts during oxidation treatments.This study aims to study the effects of AOP's effluent treatment on microplastic and liquid plastics as well as to study their degradation products formed due to the AOP treatment. The University of Wuppertal, a technical university with a strong background in projects within private sector, has the equipment that matches the state-of-the-art level for the analytical procedures, considered a limiting aspect for that type of study. (AU)