Removal of pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptor compounds from natural waters by clarification associated with powdered activated carbono.

Abstract

This work has evaluated the efficiency of two coagulants, aluminum sulfate (AS) and polyaluminum chloride (PACl), combined with the adsorption process using powdered activated carbon (PAC) on the removal of diclofenac (DCF), sulfamethoxazole (SMX), ethinylestradiol (EE2), estradiol (E2), estrone (E1), estriol (E3), and bisphenol-A (BPA) from low- and highturbidity waters. The results have shown that the concomitant application of PAC and either coagulant has worsened the removal efficiency for all pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptors tested, which might have occurred due to the covering of adsorption sites by aluminum hydroxide particles. In this configuration (coagulation in the presence of PAC, 10 mg L−1), the best removal efficiency (∼40 %) was obtained for E1 and EE2 when AS was used as coagulant in contact times that varied from 13.5 to 23.5 min. When the coagulant was the PACl, contact times were lower (8.5 to 13.5 min) and the highest removal efficiency was observed for EE2 (∼52 %).When PAC was added as a pretreatment (before addition of coagulant), the removal e f f i c i e n cy was gr e a t l y i n c r eased f o r al l microcontaminants and the application of 2.5 mg L−1 of PAC with 120 min of contact led to removal efficiencies varying from 30 to 99.9 %.