Advanced Treatment: Tackling Paracetamol with Fenton Oxidation and Membrane Hybrid Processes

Abstract

Paracetamol (PCT) in aquatic environments has become a global concern due to its potential harm to humans and environments. Adding to the worry, conventional water treatment only degrades PCT partially. Tertiary technologies, specifically integrating Fenton oxidation and membrane filtration, offer new pathways for addressing this issue. This combined approach tackles limitations, the large chemical footprint and iron residue associated with Fenton oxidation, and able to reduce the fouling tendency of the membrane. This study aims to evaluate the paracetamol removal efficiency by hybrid technology combining Fenton oxidation and membrane filtration, and the membrane performance during the filtration process. Fenton vital parameter of H2O2/Fe2+ was studied and resulted in optimal removal of PCT of 45% in COD removal. A constant flux of 120 L/m²·h was used for Ultrafiltration (UF) process using flat sheet Polyethersulfone (PES) with pore size of 30 nm. From the UF process, lack of contribution of COD removal was observed. On the other hand, the UF was able to remove up to 54% of Fe2+ was observed at alkaline pH of 8.5. During the UF filtration also observed that the membrane permeability decreased over time, according to the filtered specific volume.

Keywords

• Fenton, Hybrid Process. Iron, Membrane Filtration. Paracetamol