Treatment of pharmaceutical industry wastewater through integrated and sequential processes: Electro‐Fenton coupled with ozone/ UV and electro‐Fenton with photocatalytic oxidation

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Abstract The pharmaceutical industry wastewater was treated by applying O 3 , UV, EF, and PcO processes individually, hybrid, and sequentially. Individual experimental studies of O 3 , O 3 /UVC, EF, and PcO treatment processes were initially carried out in the batch mode. The max TOC removal efficiencies were 13%, 24%, 42%, and 48%, respectively. It was found that single usage of these processes could not be adequate due to the diversity of resistant organic matters in wastewater. Firstly, the EF process was carried out to degrade and decompose resistant organic pollutants, and O 3 /UVC or PcO was then sequentially applied to eliminate and mineralize remaining organic compounds from wastewater. The sequential implementation performances of EF‐O 3 /UVC and EF‐PcO processes were investigated using different process conditions (ozone dosage, light type, current densities, catalysts, etc.). TOC reduction values were obtained as 79% and 80% with sequential treatment systems, respectively. The energy consumptions of these processes were calculated as 537.46 kWh/kg TOC and 2503.43 kWh/kg TOC. Results indicated that the enhanced treatment performance originated from the integrated operation of the processes rather than from the efficiencies of the individual processes alone.