Treatment of Pharmaceutical Wastewater by Electrochemical Method: Optimization of Operating Parameters by Response Surface Methodology
Publication: Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 16, Issue 4
Abstract
The treatment of a high-strength pharmaceutical wastewater (PW) has been carried out using two different electrochemical processes [i.e., electrocoagulation (EC) using aluminium and electrooxidation (EO) using carbon electrodes]. For EC, the main object was to study the adsorption capacity of electroflocs using the Freundlich isotherm () and the kinetics of adsorption by (Lagergren model) first-order () and second-order () kinetic models. For the EO process, the effect of current density (CD) in a range from 40 to and initial pH from 3 to 11 on the treatment efficiency was studied. Under identical operating conditions (CD ; pH 7.2), EC resulted in 24% after 25 min, whereas the EO yielded 35.6% chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal after 90 min of treatment. The kinetics of COD removal for EO was described by a two-stage, first-order kinetic model. Based on the cyclic voltammetric studies, the presence of chlorides was found to have an influence, resulting in indirect oxidation by the generation of chloride/hypochlorite oxidants. Response surface methodology (RSM) was found to be an effective optimization tool, which shows the optimum pH/CD/electrolysis time to be for achieving 30.89% COD removal by the EO process. The study has shown that electrooxidation treatment can be more effectively used as pre treatment to improve the biocompatibility of PW than as a direct biological treatment of PW.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Adams, C., Wang, Y., Loftin, K., and Meyer, M. (2002). “Removal of antibiotics from surface and distilled water in conventional water treatment processes.” J. Environ. Eng., 128(3), 253–260.
Aleboyeh, A., Daneshvar, N., and Kasiri, M. B. (2008). “ Optimization of C.I. acid red 14 azo dye removal by electrocoagulation batch process with response surface methodology.” Chem. Eng. Process., 47(5), 827–832.
American Public Health Association, American Water Works Association, Water Pollution Control Federation. (1999). Standard methods of examination of water and wastewater, 20th Ed., Franson, M. A. H., Eaton, A. D., Clesceri, L. S., and Greenberg, A. E., eds., Washington, DC.
Arsalan-Alaton, I., and Caglayan, A. E. (2006) “Toxicity and biodegradability assessment of raw and ozonated procaine penicillin-G formulation effluent.” Ecotoxicol. Environ. Saf., 63(1), 131–140.
Balcioğlu, A. I., and Ötker, M. (2003). “Treament of pharmaceutical wastewater containing antibiotics by and processes.” Chemosphere, 50(1), 85–95.
Beltran, F. J. (2003). “Ozone-UV radiation-hydrogen peroxide oxidation technologies.” Chemical degradation methods for wastes and pollutants-environmental and industrial applications, Tarr, M. A., ed., Marcel Dekker, New York, 201–235.
Boroski, M., Rodrigues, A. C., Garcia, J. C., Sampaio, L. C., Nozaki, J., and Hioka, N. (2009). “Combined electrocoagulation and photoassisted treatment applied to wastewater effluents from pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.” J. Hazard. Mater., 162(1), 448–454.
Carballa, M., Omil, F., and Lema, J. M. (2005). “Removal of cosmetic ingredients and pharmaceuticals in sewage primary treatment.” Water Res., 39(19), 4790–4796.
Catalkya, E. C., and Kargi, F. (2009). “Degradation and mineralization of simazine in aqueous solution by ozone/hydrogen peroxide advanced oxidation.” J. Environ. Eng., 135(12), 1357–1363.
Chen, G. (2004). “Electrochemical technologies in wastewater treatment.” Sep. Purif. Technol., 38(1), 11–41.
Comninellis, C., and Pulgarian, C. (1991). “Anodic oxidation of phenol for wastewater treatment using anodes.” J. Appl. Electrochem., 21(8), 703–708.
Czarnetzki, L. R., and Janssen, L. J. (1992). “Formation of hypochlorite, chlorate and oxygen during NaCl electrolysis form alkaline solutions at an anode.” J. Appl. Electrochem., 22(4), 315–324.
Deshpande, A. M., Satyanarayan, S., and Ramakant, S. (2009). “Electrochemical pretreatment of wastewater from bulk drug manufacturing industry.” J. Environ. Eng., 135(8), 716–719.
Emamjomeh, M. M., and Sivakumar, M. (2009). “Review of pollutants removed by electrocoagulation/flotation processes.” J. Environ. Manage., 90(5), 1663–1679.
Enick, O. V., and Moore, M. M. (2007). “Assessing the assessments: Pharmaceuticals in the environment.” Environ. Impact Assess. Rev., 27(8), 707–729.
Ferreira, S. L. C. et al. (2007). “Box-Behnken design: An alternative for the optimization of analytical methods.” Anal. Chim. Acta, 597(2), 179–186.
Foller, P. C., and Tobias, C. W. (1982). “The anodic evolution of ozone.” J. Electrochem. Soc., 29, 505–514.
Gupta, S. K., Gupta, S. K., and Hung, Y.-T. (2006). “Treatment of phatrmaceutical wastes.” Waste Treatment in process industries, Hung, Y.-T., Howard, H. Lo, and Yapijakis, C., eds., Taylor and Francis, New York.
Halling-Sorenson, B., Nielson, S. N., Lanzky, P. F., and Ingersler, L. F. (1998). “Occurance, fate and effects of pharmaceutical substances in the environment—A review.” Chemosphere, 36(2), 357–393.
Hamed, E., and Sakr, A. (2001). “Application of multiple response optimization technique to extended release formulations design.” J. Controlled Release, 73(2–3), 329–338.
Hofl, C., Gerhard, S., Specht, O., Wurdack, I., and Wabner, C. (1997). “Oxidative degradation of AOX and COD by different advanced oxidation processes: A comparative study with two samples of pharmaceutical wastewater.” Water Sci. Technol., 35(4), 257–264.
Huber, M. M., Canonica, S., Park, G. K., and von Gunten, U. (2003). “Oxidation of pharmaceutical during ozonation and advanced oxidation processes.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 37(5), 1016–1024.
Jain, R., Bhargava, M., and Sharma, N. (2003). “Electrochemical studies on a pharmaceutical azo dye: Tartrazine.” Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 42(2), 243–247.
Jara, C. C., Fino, D., Specchia, V., Saracco, G., and Spinelli, P. (2007). “Electrochemical removal of antibiotics from wastewaters.” Appl. Catal., B, 70(1–4), 479–487.
Kannan, N., Sivadurai, S. N., Berchmans, L. J., and Vijayavalli, R. (1995). “Removal of phenolic compounds by electrooxidation method.” J. Environ. Sci. Health., Part A Environ. Sci. Eng.Toxic Hazard. Subst. Control, 30(10), 2185–2203.
Kummerer, K., Hartmann, T. S., and Meyer, M. (1997). “Biodegradibility of antitumor agent ifosfamide and its occurance in hospital effluents and communal sewage.” Water Res., 31(11), 2705–2710.
Mayabhate, S. P., Gupta, S. K., and Joshi, S. G. (1988). “Biological treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater.” Water Air Soil Pollut., 38(1–2), 189–197.
Menapace, H. M., Diaz, N., and Weiss, S. (2008). “Electrochemical treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater by combining anodic oxidation with ozonation.” J. Environ. Sci. Health, Part A: Environ. Sci. Eng., 43(8), 961–968.
Mollah, M. Y. A., Morkovsky, P., Gomes, J. A. G., Kesrnez, M., Parga, J., and Cocke, D. L. (2004). “Fundamentals, present and future perspectives of electrocoagulation.” J. Hazard. Mater., 114(1–3), 199–210.
Montgomery, D. C. (1991). Design and analysis of experiments, 3rd Ed., Wiley, New York.
Panizza, M., and Cerisola, G. (2003). “A comparative study on direct and indirect electrochemical oxidation of polyaeromatic compounds.” Ann. Chim. (Rome, Italy), 93(12), 977–984.
Plecher, D., and Walsh, F. C. (1993). Industrial electrochemistry, Blackie Academic and Professional, Glasgow, U.K., 283.
Polcaro, A. M., Palmas, S., Renoldi, F., and Mascia, M. (2000). “Three-dimensional electrodes for the electrochemical combustion of organic pollutants.” Electrochem. Acta, 46(2–3), 389–394.
Rajeshwar, K., and Ibanez, J. (1997). Environmental electrochemistry: Fundamentals and applications in pollution abatement, Academic Press, San Diego.
Szpyrkowicz, L., Kaul, S. N., and Rao, N. N. (2005). “Tannery wastewater treatment by electro-oxidation coupled with biological process.” J. Appl. Electrochem., 35(4), 381–390.
Torres, R. A., Sarria, V., Torres, W., Peringer, P., and Pulgarian, C. (2003). “Electrochemical treatment of 5-amino-6-methyl-2-benzimidazolone: toward an electrochemical-biological coupling.” Water Res., 37(13), 3118–3124.
Vago, E. D., and Calvo, E. J. (1992). “Electrocatalysis of oxygen reduction at oxide electrodes in alkaline solutions.” J. Electroanal. Chem., 339(1–2), 41–67.
Zhang, G., Ng, W. J., and Ji, S. (2008). “Pretreatment by Fenton oxidation of an amoxillin wastewater.” J. Environ. Eng., 134(4), 326–330.
Zhou, P., Su, C., Li, B., and Quian, Yi. (2006). “Treatment of high strength pharmaceutical wastewater and removal of antibiotics in anaerobic and aerobic biological processes.” J. Environ. Eng., 132(1), 129–136.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 16 • Issue 4 • October 2012
Pages: 316 - 326
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 3, 2010
Accepted: Dec 12, 2011
Published online: Dec 17, 2011
Published in print: Oct 1, 2012
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.