The expansive number of synthetic organic compounds that enter wastewater treatment streams poses problems for the health and sustainability of water supplies.  While typical wastewater treatment allows for the passage of many dissolved organic contaminants, advanced wastewater treatment technologies, especially those employing hydroxyl radicals as the primary oxidant, have been shown effective in remediating organic water contaminants.  Recently, the oxidations have been quantified in terms of the number of hydroxyl radicals using radiation chemistry.  Under nitrous oxide saturated aqueous conditions, dissolved organics are subjected solely to hydroxyl radical oxidation, and the number of hydroxyl radicals that successfully transform the solute of interest is readily quantified.  The percent of hydroxyl radicals that successfully oxidize contaminants (removal efficiencies) has been determined for a number of compounds, such as sulfamethoxazole (36% � 7) bisphenol A (76% � 7), caffeine (92% � 8) and DEET (95% � 9).  These same model organic contaminants have been tested as mixtures in both pure laboratory water and in characterized, treated wastewater (post-membrane filtration and post-reverses osmosis).  The hydroxyl radical efficiencies of the compounds and the mixtures as a whole were determined and compared to the removal efficiencies determined for the individual component solutions.

Ionizing radiation techniques for hydroxyl radical efficiency determinations of organic contaminant mixtures in treated wastewater matrices

240th National Meeting (2010)

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