Increasing water scarcity due to drought and climate change has sparked the need for potable water reuse. To support this, it has become important that we optimize advanced treatment processes for persistent contaminants. 1,4-dioxane is a ubiquitous trace organic contaminant found in low concentrations in wastewater effluent. The objective of this study was to develop UV/persulfate based advanced oxidation processes for the treatment of 1,4-dioxane in wastewater effluent. UV/S2O82- was optimized by analyzing how water chemistry parameters such as pH, carbonate concentration and chloride concentration impact the radical distribution in experiments and computational models. Chemical probes were used to monitor steady state radical concentrations. Results have shown that UV/persulfate system is particularly suited for the wastewater effluent matrix, because the presence of residual chloride converted sulfate radicals to hydroxyl radicals and led to a higher degradation rate with 1,4-dioxane. However, carbonate has a negative impact on contaminant degradation by scavenging hydroxyl radicals. Results from this study allow us to construct more effective water treatment systems, suitable for the removal of 1,4-dioxane and potentially other persistent contaminants.

UV/Persulfate degradation of 1,4-dioxane and kinetics modeling on radical contribution

251st National Meeting (2016)

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