OHP is an emergent technology for wastewater treatment which uses hydrogen peroxide to generate highly oxidative hydroxyl radicals. This enables the cost-effective consumption of oxidation reagent. OHP can be used to treat all types of organic wastewaters to achieve COD (TOC) reduction, or increase biodegradability. It can be applied as the standalone treatment or combined with a more economical biological treatment, depending on the oxidant´s dose. The main advantages of this process are: 1. The low cost- easily handled catalyst
2. The solid-waste is made up of inert metal salts
3. The process is carried out at mild temperature and pressure conditions using hydrogen peroxide as oxidant which is a non-toxic and when properly used, a safe-handling reagent. There are currently many industrial plants using this technology as wastewater treatment in Europe, while FORET-DEISA concentrates efforts on process development. One “unusual application” is presented below. The acid purge (PA) is an aqueous stream obtained from the PO/SM process that contains mainly organic acids and peroxide. This stream is a wastewater effluent an as such, has to be treated adequately before disposal. Its content in peroxide together with severe corrosive conditions makes this stream unsuitable for its treatment into the current Wet Air Oxidation System. Seeking for safe way to remove the peroxide, the OHP was found to be the most interesting since the peroxide could be removed from the stream using its oxidant power to reduce COD at the same time. Different set of Trials at DEISA-FORET´s OHP pilot plant were carried out. The results presented at this paper will show how the OHP process provides the best alternative to remove peroxide efficiently and safely at low costs with the additional advantage of reducing considerably the COD of the stream.
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