Ozonation with Hydrogen Peroxide for Treating Wastewater from Industrial Potato Processing - a Preliminary Investigation

ABSTRACT

Wastewater generated from agricultural activities and food production is a source of environmental pollution, and its treatment is a challenging technological issue. Ozone gas (O₃), and the possibility of associating it with hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), has the potential to remove persistent organic compounds in effluents. In the present work, wastewater from industrial potato processing was characterized, and its treatment with ozone combined with hydrogen peroxide was assessed. The inlet ozone concentration and the flow rate were 84.5 mg L⁻¹ and 62.5 mL min⁻¹, respectively. The promising conditions of temperature, pH, and H₂O₂/O₃ proportion were determined to reduce the chemical oxygen demand, turbidity, and color, according to a central composite rotatable design. The H₂O₂/O₃ proportions were 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, and 0.6. Additionally, the response variables were evaluated as a function of the ozone and hydrogen peroxide treatment time for up to 24 h. The conditions obtained for treating wastewater from industrial potato processing were the following: temperature = 25°C; pH = 3.0, and H₂O₂/O₃ proportion = 0.1. For the water quality parameters adopted, the combination of ozone and hydrogen peroxide was effective at removing color and turbidity. The chemical oxygen demand, color, and turbidity reduction stabilized after 1.16 h, with cumulative applied dosages of ozone and hydrogen peroxide equal to 380 mg L⁻¹ and 35 mg L⁻¹, respectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Advanced oxidative processes
• chemical oxygen demand
• colour
• effluent quality
• ozonation
• turbidity

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the potato-processing company Palha Leve for providing the wastewater used in this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author contributions

Conceptualization, Fernanda Fernandes Heleno; Data curation, Paulo Roberto Cecon; Investigation, Patrícia Helena Ribeiro and Greicelene Jesus da Silva; Methodology, Patrícia Helena Ribeiro and Fernanda Fernandes Heleno; Resources, Leda Rita D’Antonino Faroni and Alisson Carraro Borges; Supervision, Leda Rita D’Antonino Faroni; Validation, Fernanda Fernandes Heleno, Ernandes Rodrigues Alencar, and Alisson Carraro Borges; Visualization, Patrícia Helena Ribeiro; Writing – original draft, Patrícia Helena Ribeiro and Greicelene Jesus da Silva; Writing – review and editing, Leda Rita D’Antonino Faroni, Fernanda Fernandes Heleno, Alisson Carraro Borges, Ernandes Rodrigues Alencar and Paulo Roberto Cecon.

Data availability statement

Data are available in the repository of the Federal University of Viçosa at http://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/22383.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES Finance Code 001).