Search Results (3)

Clear and sanitarily adequate water scarcity is one of the greatest problems of modern society. Continuous population growth, rising organics concentrations, and common non-efficient wastewater treatment technologies add to the seriousness of this issue. The employment of various advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) in water treatment is becoming more widespread. In this review, the state-of-the-art application of three AOPs is discussed in detail: photocatalysis, sonophotolysis, and sonophotocatalysis. Photocatalysis utilizes semiconductor photocatalysts to degrade organic pollutants under light irradiation. Sonophotolysis combines ultrasound and photolysis to generate reactive radicals, enhancing the degradation of organic pollutants. Sonophotocatalysis synergistically combines ultrasound with photocatalysis, resulting in improved degradation efficiency compared to individual processes. By studying this paper, readers will get an insight into the latest published data regarding the above-mentioned processes from the last 10 years. Different factors are compared and discussed, such as degradation efficiency, reaction kinetics, catalyst type, ultrasound frequency, or water matrix effects on process performance. In addition, the economic aspects of sonophotolysis, photocatalysis, and sonophotocatalysis will be also analyzed and compared to other processes. Also, the future research directions and potential applications of these AOPs in wastewater treatment will be highlighted. This review offers invaluable insights into the selection and optimization of AOPs. Full article

Among the critical issues that prevent the reuse of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) effluents in a circular economy perspective, the microbiological component plays a key role causing infections and diseases. To date, the use of conventional chemical oxidants (e.g., chlorine) represent the main applied process for wastewater (WW) disinfection following a series of operational advantages. However, toxicity linked to the production of highly dangerous disinfection by-products (DBPs) has been widely demonstrated. Therefore, in recent years, there is an increasing attention to implement sustainable processes, which can simultaneously guarantee the microbiological quality of the WWs treated and the protection of both humans and the environment. This review focuses on treatments based on ultraviolet radiation (UV) alone or in combination with other processes (sonophotolysis, photocatalysis and photoelectrocatalysis with both natural and artificial light) without the dosage of chemical oxidants. The strengths of these technologies and the most significant critical issues are reported. To date, the use of synthetic waters in laboratory tests despite real waters, the capital and operative costs and the limited, or absent, experience of full-scale plant management (especially for UV-based combined processes) represent the main limits to their application on a larger scale. Although further in-depth studies are required to ensure full applicability of UV-based combined processes in WWTPs for reuse of their purified effluents, excellent prospects are presented thanks to an absent environmental impact in terms of DBPs formation and excellent disinfection yields of microorganisms (in most cases higher than 3-log reduction). Full article

In this work, we present the hydrogen production by photolysis, sonolysis and sonophotolysis of water in the presence of newly synthesized solid solutions of rare earth, gallium and indium oxides playing as catalysts. From the experiments of photolysis, we found that the best photocatalyst is the solid solution Y_0.8Ga_0.2InO₃ doped by sulphur atoms. In experiments of sonolysis, we optimized the rate of hydrogen production by changing the amount of water, adding ethanol and tuning the power of our piezoelectric transducer. Finally, we performed sonolysis and sonophotolysis experiments in the presence of S:Y_0.8Ga_0.2InO₃ finding a promising synergistic effect of UV-visible electromagnetic waves and 38 kHz ultrasound waves in producing H₂. Full article