Thapar University

About: Thapar University is a education organization based out in Patiāla, Punjab, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Computer science & Cloud computing. The organization has 2944 authors who have published 8558 publications receiving 130392 citations.

Treatment of real pharmaceutical wastewater using combined approach of Fenton applications and aerobic biological treatment

Abstract: The pharmaceutical wastewater of different organic loads i.e. high (HSW) and low strength wastewater (LSW) were collected from the bulk pharmaceutical industry and subjected to different applications of Fenton’s treatment followed by subsequent biological treatment. For both the HSW and LSW, applications of Fenton such as, dark-Fenton (DF), solar driven photo-Fenton (PF) and electro-Fenton (EF) were utilized as pre-treatment technologies to improve the biodegradability and reduce the organic load of wastewater by combine oxidation and coagulation. The operational parameters like pH, hydrogen peroxide dosage and iron concentration were optimized in case of DF and PF processes, whereas in case of EF process, applied voltage and hydrogen peroxide dosage were optimized to make water biocompatible for subsequent biological degradation. The use of Fenton applications as a pre-treatment resulted in a significant enhancement in the BOD5/COD ratio validating the production of easily degradable metabolites or secondary products. Overall results indicated that among the utilized Fenton technologies, pre-treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater with PF lead to better COD and TOC removal efficiency with subsequent biological degradation when compared to DF and EF pre-treatment. Overall COD removal efficiency of the combined PF and biological treatment was around 84% for LSW and 82% for HSW. Conclusively, it can be established that combined Fenton applications as pretreatment technology and biological treatment is more effective approach in comparison to single stage oxidation either by Fenton or biological treatment. Cytotoxicity assessment revealed that complete detoxification of wastewaters were achieved indicating that hybrid treatment technology of Fenton’s and biological treatment did not exhibited any toxicity against the selected microbes.

Synthesis of Fe2O3/TiO2 monoliths for the enhanced degradation of industrial dye and pesticide via photo-Fenton catalysis

Abstract: In this work, magnetic Fe2O3/TiO2 monoliths were successfully synthesized through nanocasting method followed by wet impregnation for the removal of remazol brilliant red X-3BS (RbX) dye and widely used pesticide (Fipronil). The activity of such catalyst combined with the photo-Fenton catalysis was assayed under the UV light irradiation. The effect of various parameters such as pH, catalyst dosage, H2O2 concentration, pollutant concentration and treatment time were also investigated. The optimal pH value (pH 3), H2O2 concentration (60 mM) and catalyst dosage (2 g/L) leads the higher degradation efficiency of RbX (90.57%) within 180 min time. Whereas, it has been found that fipronil exhibited highest degradation efficiency of 88.71% at pH 3 using 10 mM of H2O2 concentration, 1.5 g/L of the catalyst in 120 min time. The Fe2O3/TiO2 monoliths showed remarkable photocatalytic activity as compared to Fe2O3 and TiO2 monoliths. This is attributed to the fact that TiO2 combined with Fe2O3 leads to the effective separation of photo excited carriers which result better degradation efficiency. The kinetics of RbX and fipronil degradation by supported Fe2O3/TiO2 monoliths followed the first-order mechanism. Moreover, synthesized monoliths showed excellent stability and reusability for four cycles of degradation. In addition, the monolithic Fe2O3/TiO2 photo-catalyst can be easier to recover after the treatment process which is more relevant to the practical application point of view.