Ozonation for the removal of bisphenol A.

The mechanism of byproduct formation and oxidation pathway of bisphenol A (BPA) during ozonation process have been compared under acidic, neutral and alkaline conditions at an applied ozone dose of 5.3 mg·L-1 min-1. Alkaline conditions promoted the fastest removal and the pseudo first-order reaction rate constant was calculated as 0.15 min-1. Complete removal under alkaline conditions (after 30 minutes of reaction time) was achieved with 1.59 mg ozone per mg BPA and 52% mineralization was achieved at 6.04 mg ozone application per mg total organic carbon (after 90 minutes of reaction time). Hydroxyl radical dominated degradation pathway (pH 10) resulted with opening of ring-structured products into Heptanoic acid, methyl ester. Sixty per cent BPA removal occurred under acidic conditions where the ozone was dominant and formation of Cyclohexene-1-carboxylic acid, ethyl ester, Benzaldehyde, 4-hydroxy-3,5-dimethyl- and 2-Phenylbenzoquinone were evidenced. Despite the fact that complete removal was achieved under neutral conditions, mineralization was not remarkable and both hydroxyl radical and ozone-based degradation pattern was evidenced after the treatment.

Medium-high frequency ultrasound and ozone based advanced oxidation for amoxicillin removal in water.

In this study, treatment of an antibiotic compound amoxicillin by medium-high frequency ultrasonic irradiation and/or ozonation has been studied. Ultrasonic irradiation process was carried out in a batch reactor for aqueous amoxicillin solutions at three different frequencies (575, 861 and 1141kHz). The applied ultrasonic power was 75W and the diffused power was calculated as 14.6W/L. The highest removal was achieved at 575kHz ultrasonic frequency (>99%) with the highest pseudo first order reaction rate constant 0.04min-1 at pH 10 but the mineralization achieved was around 10%. Presence of alkalinity and humic acid species had negative effect on the removal efficiency (50% decrease). To improve the poor outcomes, ozonation had been applied with or without ultrasound. Ozone removed the amoxicillin at a rate 50 times faster than ultrasound. Moreover, due to the synergistic effect, coupling of ozone and ultrasound gave rise to rate constant of 2.5min-1 (625 times higher than ultrasound). In the processes where ozone was used, humic acid did not show any significant effect because the rate constant was so high that ozone has easily overcome the scavenging effects of natural water constituents. Furthermore, the intermediate compounds, after the incomplete oxidation mechanisms, has been analyzed to reveal the possible degradation pathways of amoxicillin through ultrasonic irradiation and ozonation applications. The outcomes of the intermediate compounds experiments and the toxicity was investigated to give a clear explanation about the safety of the resulting solution. The relevance of all the results concluded that hybrid advanced oxidation system was the best option for amoxicillin removal.

Sonochemical degradation of diclofenac: byproduct assessment, reaction mechanisms and environmental considerations.

The study covers a thorough assessment of the overall degradation of diclofenac-Na (DCF) by high-frequency ultrasound, focusing particularly on identification, interpretation, and characterization of the oxidation byproducts and their reaction mechanisms. It was found that sonication of 5 mg L(-1) DCF at near neutral pH rendered complete conversion of the compound, 45 % carbon, 30 % chlorine, and 25 % nitrogen mineralization. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations confirmed the experimentally detected major byproduct 2,6-dichloroaniline, the formation of which was explained by OH• addition to the ipso-position of the amino group. The stability of UV absorption at around 276-280 nm throughout reaction was in agreement with the detected byproduct structures, i.e., the presence of amino/amine groups and phenolic, aniline, benzene, and quinine-type derivatives, which all absorbed at around the same band. Microtox toxicity of the reactor aliquots at early reaction showed that initially the reaction products, specifically 1-(2,6-dichlorophenyl)-2-indoline-one, were very toxic; subsequently toxicity exhibited a fluctuating pattern, and a steady declination towards the "non-toxic" level was observed only after 90 min. Oxygen uptake analysis also revealed the formation of harmful products at early reaction, but the reactor was totally biodegradable upon 1-h sonication.