Photodegradation of glyphosate acid and its commercial formulations in water by the UV/H2O2 process

S. NEDER; A.C. NEGRO; A. CASSANO; C.S. ZALAZAR

París

Congreso; IOA IUVA World Congress & Exhibition; 2011

IUVA-IO3A

Glyphosate is an organophosphate herbicide, which is the one most used in the world. Any form of spill or discharge, even if unintentional, can be transferred to the water due to its high solubility.The disposal of pesticide wastewaters including equipment rinsates and unusable product such as empty plastic pesticide containers remains an unsolved problem in many countries. In this work the potential of the H2O2/UV process for treating the wastewater from commercial formulations of glyphosate was studied. The wastewater was degraded in a photoreactor. The experimental device was a cylinder irradiated from two flat windows with two tubular, germicidal lamps and the experiments were carried out exploring the most significant experimental conditions. The obtained results were compared with the experiments made using glyphosate alone (as active ingredient, in absence of other compounds existing in commercial formulations).