Degradation of a mixture of glyphosate and 2,4-D in water solution employing the UV/H2O2 process, including toxicity evaluation.

M. MARIANI; R. ROMERO; A. CASSANO; C. ZALAZAR

Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Congreso; AOTs-18: Advanced Oxidation Technologies forTreatment of Water, Air and Soil; 2012

The aim of this work was to evaluate the technical feasibility of the UV/H2O2 process for the treatment of a mixture of two herbicides: glyphosate and 2,4-D at the same concentration level. The UV/H2O2 process was chosen due to its advantages: the equipment and processing costs are not large, hydrogen peroxide is a relatively cheap chemical and the operation is very simple. The influence of the experimental conditions, such as initial hydrogen peroxide dose, pH, initial concentration of the mixture of glyphosate and 2,4-D and incident radiation on the oxidation process have been examined. Toxicity assays (employing Vibrio fischeri) were also performed to monitor samples at different stages of the treatment. Environmental parameters such as chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total organic carbon (TOC) were also evaluated.