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Critical review of Fenton and photo-Fenton wastewater treatment processes over the last two decades

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Abstract

Water pollution is currently one of the major problems that the scientific community must solve in the twenty-first century. This issue is made even more challenging by the fact that conventional effluent treatment processes usually show poor degradation performance for a variety of recalcitrant chemical components, remaining present after simple treatments. In this scenario, advanced oxidative processes emerge as a possible solution. Due to their simplicity, the Fenton and photo-Fenton processes have attracted the attention of the scientific community for decades. This review presents a critical analysis of the feasibility of these processes for full-scale diffusion. Seeking to elucidate this point, a broad review of the literature on Fenton and photo-Fenton processes is carried out, focusing on homogeneous processes, in the last two decades (2000–2021). With this review, the authors intend to fill part of the gap of studies in the literature about the potential applicability of scaling up the Fenton and photo-Fenton processes. Fundamentals, characteristics, process parameters, chemical and photochemical reactor designs, and scale-up challenges are examined in detail. Examples of applications of these oxidative processes in pilot and full-scale conditions are presented. Finally, this review concludes with current trends and future perspectives with the aim of helping researchers in the field to direct their topics and contribute to further development of scale-up studies in advanced oxidative processes, especially with Fenton reactions.

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Abbreviations

AOP:

Advanced oxidation processes

[C]:

Concentration

BCR:

Bubble column reactor

BOD:

Biochemical oxygen demand

CFD:

Computational fluid dynamics

CIEMAT:

Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas

COD:

Chemical oxygen demand

CPC:

Compound parabolic concentrator

CSTR:

Continuous stirred-tank reactor

Dcol :

Column diameter

Dout :

Outer diameter

Din :

Inner diameter

Dp:

Particle diameter

DFT:

Density functional theory

DNS:

Direct numerical simulation

DOC:

Dissolved organic carbon

EDDS:

Ethylenediamine-N, N'-disuccinic acid

FBR:

Fluidized bed reactor

FFR:

Falling film reactor

Hcol :

Column height

HPLC:

High-performance liquid chromatography

IUPAC:

International union of pure and applied chemistry

k:

Reaction rate constant

kdiff :

Diffusion constant

L:

Length

MCS:

Monte carlo simulations

MDS:

Molecular dynamics simulations

PC:

Planar collector

PTC:

Parabolic-trough collectors

RPC:

Raceway pond reactor

SBR:

Sequencing batch reactor

SEC:

Solar energy collectors

T:

Temperature

TOC:

Total organic carbon

TR :

Residence time

TST:

Transition state theory

VR :

Reactor volume

VT :

Total volume

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Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude to the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, Grant No. 311230/2020-2), São Paulo State Research Foundation (FAPESP, Grant Nos. 2017/19838-5 and 2020/12706-9), and to the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel – Brazil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001.

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All authors contributed equally.

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Correspondence to F. Machado.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Editorial responsibility: Josef Trögl.

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Machado, F., Teixeira, A.C.S.C. & Ruotolo, L.A.M. Critical review of Fenton and photo-Fenton wastewater treatment processes over the last two decades. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 20, 13995–14032 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-023-05015-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-023-05015-3

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