Industrial Wastewater Treatment and Methods for Monitoring Treatment Processes Used to Eliminate Persistent Organic Pollutants

Industrial wastewater is the by-product of the apparatus cleaning, or it is produced during different types and stages of manufacture in factories. Serious water pollution is caused by industrial wastewater entering surface water and underground reservoirs. Before discarding the effluent undergoes a series of treatment steps among which electrochemical methods are shown to be time- and operation-efficient and cost-effective. On the other hand, reliable analytical methods are needed to prevent the presence of organic pollutants in treated water samples before discharging them into the environment. Treatment technologies currently available for full-scale use in water treatment plants are effective for removal but not PFAS destruction. PFAS are generally resistant to chemical, physical, and biological degradation, which limits many potential removal mechanisms, therefore new techniques are necessary. This study is focused on the evaluation of industrial wastewater and the control of the electro-thermochemical treatment processes that transform wastewater into reusable water and will thus contribute to increasing the sustainability of production processes in industry and environmental protection. Different treatment parameters (electrode type, working current, time) were studied, and the power of the removal was expressed by the removal efficiency factor. It was shown that for all the PFAS significant removal was obtained with aluminum electrodes at 10 A.