Modified montmorillonite in photo-Fenton and adsorption processes

GUZ L.; OLIVELLI M.; TORRES SANCHEZ R M; CURUTCHET G.; CANDAL R.

Advanced Oxidation Technologies?Sustainable Solutions for Environmental Treatments

CRC Press

Lugar: London; Año: 2014; p. 217 - 232

Nowadays environmental pollution is one of the major and more urgent problems to be resolved in the world. In particular, water contamination affects most of the planet being the situation more dramatic in the less developed countries. All the human activities from agriculture to the fabrication of sophisticated electronic equipment need water, generating enormous amounts of effluents that should be purified before its discharge to the environment. Biological water treatment is without doubts the most popular in the entire world because it is versatile, cheap and can be used in big or small cities and for several industries. However, human activity generates wastewaters containing soluble metals and/or synthetic organic compounds that are non-biodegradable or, unlike natural occurring compounds, extremely resistant to biodegradation by native microorganisms (Ali, 2010). Synthetic dyes belong to the group of poorly biodegradable compounds and approximately 20% of the synthesized dyes are discharged in aqueous effluents without any treatment (O Neill et al., 1999). Synthetic dyes are made up of complex aromatic molecular structures purposely designed to resist the exposure to light, water, air, soap and oxidizing agents. Consequently, dyes are commonly resistant to conventional biological treatment and in particular to aerobic digestion (Asgher, 2012). Although anaerobic degradation of dyes is reported, toxic amines intermediates are usually produced as byproducts and the coupling of anaerobic with aerobic treatment is usually recommended (Hosseini Koupaie et al., 2013; Singh, 2011).