Treatment of wastewater containing imazalil by means of Fenton-based processes

Abstract

This work studies the elimination, mineralization and detoxification through Fenton-based processes of wastewaters contaminated with the fungicide imazalil as a result of the postharvest treatment of bananas. Fe(II) and H₂O₂ concentrations were optimized for degradation of the corresponding imazalil concentrations. The activity of the imazalil degradation process was studied in deionized water and in simulated and real agro-industrial wastewaters. Results show that the water matrix had no detrimental effect on wastewater treatment when using the Fenton technique, but optimal iron content had to be increased when applying the photo-Fenton process. Even so, the optimal iron and H₂O₂ contents required for the photo-Fenton reaction were 6 times and 50% lower, respectively, than for the Fenton procedure. Solar pilot plant tests confirmed the detoxification of two agro-industrial wastewater effluents containing imazalil.

Keywords:

• Wastewater
• Fenton
• Imazalil
• Banana postharvest
• Ions

Acknowledgements

We thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO, Government of Spain) for funding projects NANOBAC (IPT-2011-1113-310000) and 2010-3E UNLP10 MINECO -726 and the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria for funding the PhD fellowship of Dunia E. Santiago.