CEST2025

Due to anthropogenic activities, a variety of chemicals have been synthesized, depending on different purpose. Pesticides and pharmaceuticals and personal care products are well-known as water contaminants of emerging concern (WCEC) because they remain in the aquatic environmental for a long time and demonstrate acute or chronic effects on the health of humans, animals and the ecosystem. Therefore, to protect the environment as well as human health, reliable technologies must be developed for removing WCEC in water. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have been extensively studied to treat WCEC by employing reactive species, including hydroxyl radicals, sulfates radicals, and chlorine radicals, depending on oxidants. Because the reactive species have high oxidative/reductive potential, they readily attack and break down WCEC in water. To produce the reactive species in AOPs, UV-based homogeneous processes or catalysts-based heterogeneous processes are widely developed and investigated. For this study, different iron-based catalysts were developed to activate peroxymonosulfate or peroxydisulfate for decomposing WCEC. Also, an UV-chlorine process was employed to remove WCEC. The developed catalysts were thoroughly characterized and both processes were carefully evaluated for effective degradation of different WCEC. In this presentation, the results of catalysts characterization as well as the activity evaluation of both processes for the degradation of WCEC will be provided and discussed in detail. Also, degradation pathways of target contaminants will be proposed.