Introduction to Oxidative Technologies for Water Treatment

Abstract

Chemical oxidation and advanced oxidation technologies are important processes for the abatement of refractory and/or toxic pollutants in wastewaters. The species participating in advanced oxidation technologies are powerful radicals, such as the hydroxyl radical, HO{\textbullet}, which can attack virtually all organic compounds at very high reaction rates. In this chapter, oxidative technologies, such as permanganate, ozonation, Fenton and related processes, electrochemical oxidation, $γ$-radiolysis and electron-beam treatment, nonthermal plasma, persulfate, wet air oxidation, supercritical water oxidation, ultrasound, zero-valent iron, ferrate, water photolysis under vacuum ultraviolet, periodate, chlorine and heterogeneous photocatalysis, some of them combined with UV light, are briefly described, together with examples of their applications. The most important and recent papers are cited together with review papers. These oxidative technologies can process wastewaters resistant to conventional treatments and are complementary to them.