Aspects regarding the degradation of BTEX compounds from aqueous solution by advanced oxidation processes (AOPS)

Over the past two decades, environmental regulatory have became more stringent because of increased awareness of human health and ecological risks associated with environmental contaminants. In many cases, conventional treatment technologies have low removal rates for many environmental contaminants, including benzene, toluene, ethyl-benzene and xylene (BTEX). These compounds can affect the natural receiving water quality, even low concentration alternative treatment technology like advanced processes (AOP) was necessary. The UV photooxidation is one of the advanced oxidation processes successfully applied. The pre-treatment of wastewater through AOPs leads to the less toxic and more degradable intermediaries, thus ensuring the efficiency of the biological treatment steps. It was studied the degradation of benzene from synthetic solution (0.5 mmol/dm) by direct UV photolysis with / without adding of hydrogen peroxide. The experimental results show that the efficiency of degradation and the improving of the bio-degradation characteristics of treated water (BOD/COD ratio) are affected by: pH, the dose of the oxidizing agent, the contact time.