Performance evaluation of different advanced processes for treating chloro-pesticide intermediate industrial wastewater

Wastewater treatment has become an essential part of industrial operations. Pesticide production is one of the major supportive parts of the agriculture field, as India is an agriculture-based economy. The pesticide industry wastewater (PIW) is considered as hazardous since it contains chlorinated toxic pollutants. Treatment of such type of wastewater using conventional treatment methods might have their limitations due to the presence of toxic compounds, time consumption and complexity of the treatment process. In the past few years, the electrochemical methods [electrocoagulation (EC)/electrooxidation (EO) and Fenton process] became more attractive to remove recalcitrant pollutants from the wastewater streams. In this study, the treatment of chloro-pesticide intermediate processing industrial wastewater has been carried out using different advanced processes [electrochemical methods (EC/EO) and Fenton process]. The maximum % removal of COD and chloride was found to be 52 and 30% by electrocoagulation and 16 and 26% by electrooxidation processes, respectively, with a reaction time of 20 min at pH 7. The maximum % removal of COD achieved by Fenton followed by coagulation at pH 7 was observed to be 89%.