Pesticide wastewater treatment using the combination of the microbial electrolysis desalination and chemical-production cell and Fenton process

Highlights

• MEDCC combined with Fenton process was developed to treat real pesticide wastewater.

• Pesticide removal was attributable to desalination in the MEDCC.

• High COD removal was attributable to organic distributions in different chambers.

Abstract

The combination of the microbial electrolysis desalination and chemical-production cell (MEDCC) and Fenton process for the pesticide wastewater treatment was investigate in this study. Real wastewater with several toxic pesticides, 1633 mg/L COD, and 200 in chromaticity was used for the investigation. Results showed that desalination in the desalination chamber of MEDCC reached 78%. Organics with low molecular weights in the desalination chamber could be removed from the desalination chamber, resulting in 28% and 23% of the total COD in the acid-production and cathode chambers, respectively. The desalination in the desalination chamber and organic transfer contributed to removal of pesticides (e.g., triadimefon), which could not be removed with other methods, and of the organics with low molecular weights. The COD in the effluent of the MEDCC combined the Fenton process was much lower than that in the perixo-coagulaiton process (<150 vs. 555 mg/L). The combined method consumed much less energy and acid for the pH adjustment than that the Fenton.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Pesticide wastewater / COD removal / Microbial electrolysis desalination and chemical-production cell / Energy consumption / Fenton oxidation

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Acknowledgements

This work was partly supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51278500 and 51308557), the Program of Guangdong Science & Technology Department (No. 2017A010104007).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-019-1191-7 and is accessible for authorized users.

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