Application of catalytic wet peroxide oxidation for industrial and urban wastewater treatment: A review

Abstract

Catalytic wet peroxide oxidation (CWPO) is emerging as an advanced oxidation process (AOP) of significant promise, which is mainly due to its efficiency for the decomposition of recalcitrant organic compounds in industrial and urban wastewaters and relatively low operating costs. In current study, we have systemised and critically discussed the feasibility of CWPO for industrial and urban wastewater treatment. More specifically, types of catalysts the effect of pH, temperature, and hydrogen peroxide concentrations on the efficiency of CWPO were taken into consideration. The operating and maintenance costs of CWPO applied to wastewater treatment and toxicity assessment were also discussed. Knowledge gaps were identified and summarised. The main conclusions of this work are: (i) catalyst leaching and deactivation is one of the main problematic issues; (ii) majority of studies were performed in semi-batch and batch reactors, while continuous fixed bed reactors were not extensively studied for treatment of real wastewaters; (iii) toxicity of wastewaters treated by CWPO is of key importance for possible application, however it was not studied thoroughly; and, (iv) CWPO can be regarded as economically viable for wastewater treatment, especially when conducted at ambient temperature and natural pH of wastewater.