Solar water detoxification

Abstract

Persistent organic pollutants cannot be treated by biological processes as these compounds are non-biodegradable and mostly toxic. In this context, advanced oxidation processes (AOP) have evolved as an emerging alternative. Time is the independent variable used to represent the process of evolution in chemical engineering. Nevertheless, time is not an effective variable to represent the evolution of a solar driven process since solar irradiation is also changing during the operation of the solar photoreactor. For this reason, accumulated UV solar energy has become one of the typically used variables to represent process evolution. Besides, the modeling of photocatalytic reactors requires an analysis of the radiation field in the photoreactor. UV irradiation has to be monitored during the solar treatment by means of UV radiometer. The absorbance spectral range of the catalyst determines the measurement range; being 320–400 nm the most used one for solar photo-Fenton. Yearly and/or monthly average values are also needed for plant scaling up, consequently, solar UV monitoring is essential.