Enhanced water treatment via combined oxidation and adsorption: a synergistic approach

Abstract

Organic micropollutants are still a major environmental and public health problem because they accumulate in all water source over the world. Because standard treatment is ineffective at the low concentrations at which these contaminants are present to remove, there is an urgent need to find better tertiary treatments for wastewater. The key points covered in this review are adsorption and Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs). The use of certain adsorption materials makes it possible to selectively sequestrate impurities, while in the case of AOPs destructive processes are performed by means of reactive radicals leading to mineralization of pollutants. These methods complement each other and provide both efficiency, waste reduction, and sustainability benefits-providing a synergy of their strengths. The AOP adsorption hybrids reported in this paper represent one of the emerging types of water-treatment units, which are particularly relevant given the high demand for improved tertiary treatment technologies capable of effectively removing persistent micropollutants from wastewater.