A Review: Subcritical Water Extraction of Organic Pollutants from Environmental Matrices.

Most organic pollutants are serious environmental concerns globally due to their resistance to biological, chemical, and photolytic degradation. The vast array of uses of organic compounds in daily life causes a massive annual release of these substances into the air, water, and soil. Typical examples of these substances include pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Since they are persistent and hazardous in the environment, as well as bio-accumulative, sensitive and efficient extraction and detection techniques are required to estimate the level of pollution and assess the ecological consequences. A wide variety of extraction methods, including pressurized liquid extraction, microwave-assisted extraction, supercritical fluid extraction, and subcritical water extraction, have been recently used for the extraction of organic pollutants from the environment. However, subcritical water has proven to be the most effective approach for the extraction of a wide range of organic pollutants from the environment. In this review article, we provide a brief overview of the subcritical water extraction technique and its application to the extraction of PAHs, PCBs, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and others form environmental matrices. Furthermore, we briefly discuss the influence of key extraction parameters, such as extraction time, pressure, and temperature, on extraction efficiency and recovery.

Subcritical water oxidation of propham by H2O2 using response surface methodology (RSM).

This study was conducted to investigate the degradation of propham, which is a compound that pollutes water and seriously threatens human health, by subcritical water oxidation and using H2O2 as an oxidising agent. The maximum total organic carbon removal rate of propham was obtained as 73.65% at 40 min of treatment time and 60 mM of H2O2 concentration and 373 K of temperature. In addition, response surface method based on the Box-Behnken design was applied to design the degradation experiments of propham for determination of the combined effects of process variables, namely temperature, concentration of oxidising agent and treatment time. The proposed quadratic model of propham degradation, which was examined with the analysis of variance, was used for navigating the design space. The R2 and adjusted R2 values of the model were determined as 0.9921 and 0.9819 respectively. It was shown that propham was effectively degraded, thus could be removed from the water by using an environmentally friendly method.

Subcritical water oxidation of 6-aminopenicillanic acid and cloxacillin using H2O2, K2S2O8, and O2.

This study was undertaken to investigate the degradation of 6-aminopenicillanic acid (6-APA) and cloxacillin in aqueous solution by the combined effect of subcritical water and the oxidising agents O2, H2O2, and K2S2O8. Nano ZnO was used as a solid catalyst. Response surface methodology was used to determine the optimum experimental parameters (temperature, treatment time, and concentration of oxidising agent). For 6-APA, the maximum organic carbon (TOC) removal rates of 83.54%, 81.11% and 42.42% were obtained using H2O2, K2S2O8, and O2, respectively. For cloxacillin, the maximum TOC removal rates of 67.69%, 76.02% and 14.45% were obtained using H2O2, K2S2O8, and O2, respectively. Additionally, the impact of nano and commercial ZnO on TOC removal rates was determined. Secondary ions produced during the degradation process-such as nitrite, nitrate, sulphate and chloride-were determined using ion chromatography.