Executive Summary : | The pharmaceutical industry faces challenges in treating pharmaceutical effluents due to high COD and low BOD values, antibiotic-resistant bacteria proliferation, inefficient removal of active compounds, and post-treatment requirements. The Fenton process is more suitable for heterogeneous pharmaceutical wastewater due to its non-specific attack on organics. The research proposes using a sequential Fluidized Fenton-Soil scape biofilter for complete organic removal in the pharmaceutical industry wastewater. Composite beads made from iron ore mine tailings and fuller's earth clay will be used as heterogeneous Fenton catalysts in the Fluidized Bed Fenton (FBF) process. To overcome this drawback, alternative carriers with higher catalytic activity for promoted hydroxyl radicals (•OH) generation in the FBF system will be explored. The non-specific action of •OH radicals will cleave complex antibiotic structures in the wastewater, reducing total organic content and toxicity. Toxicity studies will be conducted to assess the detoxification efficiency of the proposed treatment system. To remove possible iron leached from the Fenton process and metal pollutants in the pharmaceutical effluents, soil scape biofilters will be included downstream of the FBF process. These biofilters consist of siderophores immobilized in clay-based ultrafiltration membranes supported on zeolite and sand particles. The hypothesized siderophores will chelate iron and other metals in FBF treated wastewater and retain them within the biofilter. Low molecular weight intermediates of treated wastewater will be retained within the biofilters. The iron-saturated biofilters can be mixed with soil as a bio-based chelated fertilizer for iron-deficient plants. |