This study evaluates the influence of UV dose on degradation of carbamazepine (CBZ) in wastewater under UV-C (λ = 254 nm) photolysis with and without H2O2. The rate of degradation of CBZ exhibited a direct dependence on the intensity of incident UV irradiation as the rate of degradation was observed to increase linearly (R2 = 0.98) with UV intensity between 1.67 and 8.95 × 1017 photons/s. More than 95% of the CBZ that spiked in wastewater rapidly degraded within 4 min with a first-order rate constant of 1.2 min-1 for an optimum H2O2 dose of 100 mg/L. Bench-scale continuous flow reactor experiments also showed that CBZ degraded with first-order kinetics at a rate constant of 1.02 min-1. The kinetic parameters obtained for a continuous bench-scale reactor were in good agreement with the relationships developed through batch experiments with only a marginal deviation of ± 6.5%. The relationship between UV intensity and CBZ degradation rate obtained in this study was extrapolated to the UV disinfection unit of a wastewater treatment plant to predict possible degradation of CBZ during UV disinfection. The addition of 100 mg/L of H2O2 to the secondary-treated effluent entering the UV disinfection unit is predicted to achieve over 60% degradation of CBZ. Abbreviations: CBZ carbamazepine; AOPs advanced oxidation processes; UV ultraviolet radiation; UV-C ultraviolet C (λ = 254 nm) radiation; NZVI non-zerovalent iron; WWTP wastewater treatment plant; HPLC high-performance liquid chromatography.
Keywords: Carbamazepine; UV disinfection; UV/HO; advanced oxidation processes (AOPs).