Developing Methods for the Treatment of Pharmaceutical Wastewater

Abstract

The crisis of water deficiency is impacting worldwide. The expanded population in expansion to different human activities has driven to a drastic and continuous shortage of water availability. This situation has driven scientist to discover economic and environmental friendly solutions. One of the arrangements proposed to eliminate this issue is to treat industrial wastewater from the pharmaceutical sector. The wastewater produced during the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and drugs contain wide variety of compounds that should be treated. Traditional methods are being used for the treatment of wastewater. However, these methods are energy Intensive and expensive. This limits the role for the treatment of wastewater. The objective of this research is to develop a cost effective method for pharmaceutical wastewater treatment because pharma sector plays vital role in upgrading the economy of country. Green chemistry and zonation will be used to treat pharmaceutical waste (caffeine) from water. As zonation requires energy for the ozone production, we will shift to Corona-DBD micro plasma which make this application cost effective and sustainable. Correspondingly green chemistry is eco friendly and economical. Many process factors are studied to analysis the feasibility of these two methods. By employing zonation, the degradation of caffeine was achieved 90% in 30 min and while DES treatment method the degradation of caffeine was achieved 88% in 25min