IFAT - Fraunhofer IGB

Munich / May 30, 2022 - June 03, 2022

IFAT | Fair

World's Leading Trade Fair for Water, Sewage, Waste and Raw Materials Management

Hall B2, Booth 215/314

IFAT is the world's leading trade fair for technologies for the treatment and recycling of wastewater and waste. Here, Fraunhofer IGB presents the processes developed at the institute for oxidative water treatment (AOP, advanced oxidation processes).

Water purification and treatment with oxidation processes

Pollutants such as drug residues, pesticides, herbicides and chemicals in industrial wastewater are hardly accessible by biological wastewater treatment. These substances can be removed in the so-called quaternary treatment step by means of advanced oxidation processes (AOP) using oxidizing agents such as ozone and hydrogen peroxide as well as UV radiation. However, these cleaning methods generally require chemical additives.

Plasma reactor

The use of plasma processes is an environmentally friendly and cost-effective alternative. By applying an electrical current, ions, highly-reactive short-lived radicals and short-wave radiation are generated in the plasma from the ambient air and atmospheric oxygen, and break down the wastewater constituents.

Hence, the use of additional chemicals and their disposal is not required because the reactive particles are generated only during discharge and react rapidly with pollutants dissolved in water due to their high reactivity.

Plasma processes can be configured for applications in drinking water treatment, process water treatment, the treatment of ballast water etc.

Oxidation reactor

The oxidative degradation of micropollutants on a titanium dioxide catalyst, activated by UVA‑LEDs (light emitting diodes), has been investigated at Fraunhofer IGB on behalf of PMK Kunststoffverarbeitungs GmbH from Geisingen‑Gutmadingen and compared with advanced oxidation using hydrogen peroxide and mercury UVC emitters – a classical AOP process.

For this purpose, the performance of the catalyst was demonstrated first followed by optimization of the operating parameters. Volume flow, irradiance and oxidizing additives were varied according to the statistical design of experiment. The degradation of drug residues was demonstrated at the optimized operating point.

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